A Hunter's Tale
by Colleen
Summary: Halloween on the Hellmouth has so many possiblilties.  Apparently Ethan thought that one of the Slayer's little group going as a Vampire Hunter might be funny.  Too bad neither he nor Xander know much about the costume.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Vampire Hunter D belong to their perspective owners. I am not one of them. I'm just borrowing them for entertainment purposes and no money shall be made from this entertainment.

Author's note: Yes, it's another YAHF. Sorry, can't seem to help myself.

A Hunter's Tale or How Did We Get from Here to There

By Colleen

Chapter 1

_"Transient guests are we."_

_**~Hideyuki Kikuchi**_

Xander listened with a half an ear as Ethan, of well… Ethan's, manoeuvred Buffy into renting a princess like ball gown for Halloween. Since the store's owner was too busy to be annoyed by someone who couldn't afford the costumes he was looking at, Xander took the opportunity to rummage through the higher end get ups.

He almost whimpered as he looked over lost opportunities. Superheroes, Storm Troopers, Alien's and Predators, Robo-Cop and Marvin the Martian. Anyone of those suits would be a hundred times more impressive than the plastic gun and fatigues he would be wearing the next night.

And a hundred times more expensive.

With a little sigh, he turned to join the girls, who had finished their shopping and were waiting at the door for him. His forward motion was impeded however, when his plastic bag of plastic gun looped itself onto the oversized hilt of a not so plastic sword.

"Dang it." A twist here, a pull there, and the stupid bag had gotten thoroughly tangled. He let go of it, looking at it in disgust as it hung off the sword.

"Xander?'

Buffy and Willow were both looking at him and obviously trying not to laugh. He waved them off. "Go grab us a table at the Espresso Pump, I'll be right there."

As the girls headed out Xander reached out towards the bag, intending to rip the handles apart to get it off the sword. Another pair of hands reached the sack before he did, and a few graceful moments later Ethan was handing it back, still intact, to a surprised Xander.

"Uh, thanks."

"Don't mention it." Ethan picked the sword up and gave a little sigh. "This does not belong here." Xander looked around the shop, noticing that the weapon wasn't the only thing out of place. Last minute customers and panicking high school students that had 'volunteered' for trick or treat duty had turned what had probably once been a neat and tidy store into a jumble sale.

Ethan planted the tip of the sheathed sword on the floor and now that Xander wasn't annoyed with the thing, he noticed just how long it was. Standing upright, it was almost as tall as he was and if it hadn't been jammed into the costumes so that it had been hanging out at an angle he never would have gotten tangled in it. It also hadn't helped that the shape of the hilt itself was… odd. It gave the impression that it had been carved from an irregular piece of driftwood, and yet at the same time it was banded, as if it were actually bamboo. A slightly out of place black and white disc at the cross piece seemed to be a modern art interpretation of a skull.

"What costume does that thing belong to anyway?"

The store's owner took a closer look at the sword and then sent an amused smile towards the door through which the girls had just recently left. "It belongs to a vampire hunter's costume."

Damn, that would have been cool. Buffy going as a fainting noble woman and him going as a slayer, male of course. The reversal of roles would have done a lot to replace the lost machismo he'd suffered when Buffy had rescued him from Larry that afternoon.

And, should he be worried that that Ethan guy looked way too amused for comfort?

"I'll tell you what, help me find the rest of the costume in this mess and I'll rent it to you in exchange for the plastic rifle you just bought from me."

Xander's eyes went wide. "Are you serious?"

"Quite."

That was enough for Xander; he'd learned long ago never to disbelieve an Englishman who had just used the Q word.

"What are we looking for?"

Fifteen minutes later the two of them had dug up black leather armour, arm guards, boots, wide brimmed hat, cape (of all things), spiked shoulder guards and a weapon's belt with a buckle that matched the skull disc on the sword.

For a costume the get up was solidly real. Even the blade of the sword was genuine, if blunted.

"Where did you get this from anyway?"

Ethan frowned in thought, then walked over to the checkout counter and pulled out an accounting book. He flipped though a few pages until he found what he was looking for. "Thought so." He closed the book and looked over at Xander. "It was part of a lot I bought from a production company. It was full of costumes that had been designed as visual aids to some of the movies they were pitching. The items in the lot were all from films that didn't get the go ahead."

Xander looked over the hat he was currently holding. "What was this movie supposed to be?"

"I'm afraid I don't know. The costumes only came with the names of the characters attached to them and I think this one just said Vampire Hunter."

Actually, there had been one more letter on the piece of paper, but Ethan, not knowing the character, had thought that someone had simply been interrupted before writing the rest of the name down.

"We're still missing a wig, a shirt and a blue pendant.''

As it turned out that those last three pieces were the only things still attached to the hanger the costume was originally on.

A few minutes later Xander headed out, still hoping to catch up with the girls at the Espresso Pump. He was one plastic rifle poorer, and one kick ass costume, richer.

* * *

Resplendent in her ball gown, Buffy opened the door to her house and felt her lower jaw give way and nearly hit the floor. The first thing she saw was black leather armour, pulled tight across a hard body that more than hinted at the muscle underneath the material. A long cape with an amber lining draped elegantly down his arms and back and the man's face was framed by long flowing hair that was too gorgeous to be called anything as simple as brown. A sword hilt peaked out from behind his right shoulder and a wide brimmed hat topped off the ensemble, shading the young man's face. He pulled the hat off and bowed to Buffy. Her mouth snapped shut in surprise as she realized the face under that hat belonged to her Xander shaped friend, who didn't seem all that Xander shaped at the moment.

"Lady Buffy, may I escort you and Lady Willow to our hallowed halls of learning to participate in the collecting of candy?"

Buffy choked back a laugh and curtsied. "We would be greatly honoured to accept you as our protector and guide dear sir."

* * *

Even under tickle torture, Xander would have refused to admit that he was having a good time, but he was. While he was too old for the whole trick or treat scene, he did rather miss it. And not just the candy. Halloween had always given him the feeling that the dark was his, at least for the one night. Given that vampires and the other things that went bump avoided the holiday, that feeling did have some basis in fact.

The children he was taking around were a hoot and they had quickly implemented the tips he'd given them at the start of the evening. A few more houses and they should have enough candy to last them a couple of weeks or more.

As the kids raced up the walkway to the next house, Xander felt a tug on his cape. He looked down to see a cute little thing dressed as a princess.

"Yes?" He asked, drawing the word out longer than necessary and frowning slightly. He was certain that this girl hadn't been in his group when they started out.

"Who you were supposed to be? I'm a princess."

Xander smiled. "Well, maybe I'm your knight, in not so shining armour."

She frowned and shook her head. "You look like the guy in the cartoon I saw last night, only prettier. "

Xander winced. So much for feeling manly. "What cartoon? "

"The one I watched while Jeanie was busy with her boyfriend. "

"Jeanie? "

"My babysitter."

"Ah."

The kids from his group were coming back when she grabbed his left hand, looked at the palm of it and frowned. She tightened her grip and tugged. He followed, allowing her to pull him up the walkway to the house. The woman at the door smiled at the little girl and her escort. "So, who are you?" She asked, even though she already knew the answer.

"I'm a princess, and this is D. May I borrow a marker or a pen, please?"

The woman looked quizzically up at Xander, who just shrugged. The woman gave a shrug of her own and then pulled open the drawer of a small table that was sitting in the entryway. A quick rummage netted her a half dried out black marker, which she handed over to the costumed princess. The girl thanked her with a curtsy.

"Your left hand, please."

Willing to play along, Xander handed over the asked for appendage. The girl uncapped the marker and with three dots and a curving line drew a happy face, with nose, in the palm of his hand. She recapped the pen and handed it to its owner with another curtsy. The woman took it back with a smile and handed the princess a miniature chocolate bar in exchange.

Xander looked down at the smiley face drawn into his palm, then back to the girl. "Why did I need a face in my left hand?"

The little girl rolled her eyes and huffed. Obviously, he was being very silly. "If you're D from the cartoon, then you have to have a face in your hand. He can save you if the vampires and mutants get you." Having given her answer she ran off down the walkway to meet up with a harried looking woman who was trying to control three boys dressed as pirates. The girl looked enough like the woman to leave little doubt that this was her mother and Xander tipped his hat to her as he hurried past after his group, who were already half ways to the next house.

Once Xander caught up to his kids he looked back down at the smiley face on his hand and shook his head. He didn't know what the cartoon was that she was talking about, but the thing must be downright weird.

* * *

In the back of a dark shop, a man said the last few words to the spell he was casting. Sweating with the effort Ethan looked up as he felt the different threads of chaos magic pull themselves together into a fist and punch their way into this reality.

"Showtime."

* * *

Xander and his troupe were at the last house on their route when the magics hit them. The woman handing out candy gasped when the change came over the group, although it was mostly due to the fact that the young man in the black armour and cape became, with only a few refining shifts to his appearance, both staggeringly beautiful and wholly terrifying.

D didn't know how he'd arrived on this woman's front porch, but he didn't let that faze him. He grabbed the two children in the group who were unchanged and shoved them across the threshold, into the woman's arms.

"Bar the door."

She hastily complied and D turned to square off against a cackling witch, a brute in a black mask and a small, winged fairy. D reached back and wrapped his hand around the hilt of his sword.

"I currently have no quarrel with you." His voice was as quiet as the deepest pond, but those depths had nasty things in it, and those things had teeth.

The three creatures gave him an assessing look, and then bolted away in three different directions.

"Huh," a hoarse voice by his left hip said, "it's rare to see monsters with common sense."

D didn't bother to answer. The sounds from the house behind him verified that the woman and two children were busy barricading the door with whatever furniture they could move. He stepped off the porch and walked out to the street where small creatures and people in festival clothing ran about either growling or screaming.

"It's a spell." The gravelly voice at his left said.

D lifted his left hand up so he could look at his palm. "Are we being affected by it?"

The palm of his hand rippled, and a small, wizened face formed in the centre of it. The thing looked at him, and then blinked. "Yeah, you could say that."

"In what way?"

The creature blinked again. "Let's just say that you're not quite yourself at the moment." It paused in thought. "Actually, I'm not so sure I'm not being affected as well. I feel strangely jovial and I can't seem to stop smiling." It gave him a grin that was disturbing enough that D returned his attention to the chaos around him.

"Can you track the spell to its source?"

The little face took a deep breath and seemed to taste the air. "No problem."

"Then lead."

* * *

Ghosting through the shadows, D had stopped only once, to scare off a couple of demons that were showing interest in two girls. He continued on his way before the young women got a good look at him. As he moved away, he heard the girl in very skimpy clothing manage to convince the one in the heavy dress to come away to safety. If they made it, they ought to survive until the spell was broken.

* * *

D stared at the dark storefront, the slightest of frowns on his face. "A costume shop."

"Not exactly a surprise."

D looked at his left-handed companion. "Why?"

"Check yourself in the window."

D looked at his reflection. As usual, given his nature, it was indistinct. His image was half there and half not there, the likeness made worse by the indifferent quality of the darkened glass as a mirror. Still, what his left hand was talking about was obvious.

"I'm possessing… and altering this body."

"Yep. I'd say the spell is using costumes as a link. Pretty much every monster out here is just some poor slob who dressed up for whatever festival they were celebrating."

D nodded, and then moved to kick the door in.

"Wait."

D halted in mid move. "What?"

"At least try opening it first."

D's lips quirked momentarily in what would have been a wry smile on anyone else as he reached for the doorknob.

* * *

As D walked through the shop he had to wonder if the mage who was working the spell was an idiot, or just so powerful that he didn't worry about anyone coming after him. Those were really the only two reasons he could come up with for the door actually being unlocked.

"The focal point should be just behind those curtains."

D didn't acknowledge that he had heard his companion, other than to move to the curtained doorway and pull back the drape. In the room behind the hanging cloth, a bust with two faces and glowing eyes sat on an altar surrounded by candles.

"Huh, Janus. Makes sense, but I didn't think anyone would have known who he was nowadays. Even the oldest nobles haven't bothered with the Roman and Greek gods in the last eight or nine thousand years.

"Surely it hasn't been as long as that."

D turned to the voice. It belonged to a tall, dapper man in his early forties.

"This is your work?" D asked him.

"Quite."

D frowned at the reply, finding the one word strangely familiar. "End the spell."

The mage smiled, it wasn't pleasant. "Now why would you want me to do that? The night's just begun. Besides, you wouldn't want to leave the party early, would you?"

D narrowed his eyes at the sorcerer and reached back to wrap his hand around the hilt of his sword.

The mage raised his hands, as if to fend D off.

"Now let's not be hasty. Surely we can come to an amicable understanding."

D was beginning to wonder why the magician was talking instead of trying to fight him off with magic.

"Ha, he's used up everything he's got casting that spell." Left Hand said, answering D's unasked question. "Hell, he's lucky to be standing, given how much power it must have taken."

"Which is why I wouldn't be able to end the spell. It will just have to play itself out." Ethan's tone was mellow, but his eyes darted around the space, looking for the owner of the hoarse voice.

The air near D's hip seemed to make a snorting sound. "Please, do we look that stupid…? Well, maybe he does... Erk." D briefly closed his left hand into a fist, and then released it. "Humph, fine. We don't need him to end it; all we need to do is destroy the focus."

"The bust?"

"Yep."

"No, wait…" Ethan started, trying to stop the costume possessed intruder. Before he could get to the third word in the sentence, which would have been "don't," D had already unsheathed his sword and split the bust in two, vertically.

"Oh, bugger."

Ethan dove out the back door of the shop as the two halves of Janus showed their displeasure at being split further in two by self-destructing. Costumes and bits of the shop swirled around in the sudden explosion and even D himself was thrown to the floor by the power of the suddenly released spell.

* * *

Xander groaned and fought to pull himself upright. He looked around the semi-destroyed shop and shook his head. Painfully he got to his feet, reclaiming the costume's sword before staggering his way out the store and into the now blissfully silent night.

With exaggerated care, he sheathed the blade and then looked down at the palm of his left hand. He let out a sigh of relief as a black marker happy face smiled back at him. After pulling off his hat and giving his head a rub that dislodged his wig, Xander put one foot in front of the other and started to walk towards Buffy's place, hoping that he really would find that the girls had made it to safety long enough to wait out the spell's end.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Don't own. Just playing.

Author's note: I have slightly altered the time line of the episode The Dark Ages to better fit my story. Not a lot, some things just happen later in the day rather instead of at the start of it.

A Hunter's Tale or How Did We Get from Here to There

By Colleen

Chapter 2

_By blood a king, in heart a clown. ~Alfred Lord Tennyson_

Xander sighed as he squirted a stream of soap into the rising water in the sink and haphazardly dumped the dishes from his Home Economics class into the sudsy liquid. He hated clean up detail for this course, but he put up with it as he usually enjoyed eating what they made. However lately, he found he didn't have much of an appetite for what was prepared. A sad thing, because eating really was one of his favourite things. So much so that the reason he was taking this class was not to meet girls, well… maybe that was a little bit of the reason, but mostly it was to learn how to cook. If he ever wanted to eat home cooking, it would have to be his own. It followed then that if he wanted to avoid death by food poisoning, he would need to learn to do it properly. His mother had been of little help in this regard, as her idea of cooking was deciding which restaurant to call that evening. Xander was now at a point in his life were he was starting to loath left over pizza and Chinese food, and for a teenager that was almost unthinkable.

Glasses and silverware clinked together as he soaped up and rinsed off the plates. He handed them off one by one to his lab partner, so she could dry them and put them away.

The motions were automatic. So instead of paying strict attention to what he was doing, Xander's mind wandered off to think about a subject that took up most of his time these days.

Buffy.

She seemed to be doing all right. Although, he did not trust that rightness completely. After all, she had just had a former crush/flame set her up and try to kill her. He did not believe that she had totally shaken off having to dust the jerk once the idiot's plans were foiled, and he'd been turned into a vampire.

Sure, the vampire thing was what he'd been aiming for, but existing for longer than two seconds as one had probably also been on the menu. Buffy had deep-sixed that scheme no more than a week ago.

"Ow."

Xander winced as he cut himself. Completely ignoring established protocols, he stuck his right index finger into his mouth. He'd been thinking so hard about Buffy that he was not as careful as he should have been. He'd sliced himself a good one on the knife they'd used to dice vegetables. The teacher would probably ream him out for doing something as unsanitary as putting his bleeding finger into his mouth, but he had reacted instinctively to the situation, minor though it seemed at that moment.

"Xander?" His lab partner, a somewhat uptight and too thin teen with short caramel coloured hair reached towards him. She froze midway; her breath dying in her throat as dread somehow became a physical substance and began to spill like frozen mist from the boy.

"Oh hell, that's not good," a hoarse voice said, sounding as if it came from Xander's left hip. Of course, neither his lab partner, nor the rest of the class really noticed. In moments, all of the students and the teacher were pressed up against the wall at the back of the room, eyes wide and bodies shaking. It was as far as they could move before their minds gibbered to a stop. As such, it was a poor attempt to put space between themselves and what now stood at the sink.

* * *

The moment the blood touched his tongue Xander felt… well, he never would be able to fully explain what this felt like. At least not to his complete satisfaction. Still, it was sort of like taking a lightening hit, at the same time that all of his cells learned to breathe in power.

Power, yes, that was usually how he would in future explain it. It was the closest he could come to the truth, even if the word was too pale to do it justice. Even sex, sadly, would never be as good as this.

In that moment, Xander was deaf to everything around him. It took more than even he knew he had to give, but he managed to force his finger out of his mouth. A true feat of strength, as everything in him told him to bite down and drink in more of his own blood. His body apparently didn't care that he wouldn't be doing much more than recycling his own fluids, just as long as it could taste it.

Staring at the blank wall in front of him, his hands gripped convulsively at the edge of the sink, the metal tub creaking under his fingers. His breath came out in harsh, shuddering gasps as he fought for control, although over what, he wasn't sure.

As that control thinned more and more his eyes started to shine with an unholy light. Behind him there was something. Many something's. And they were all warm and full of exactly what he needed to fill the sudden aching hole that was drilling its way into his stomach. His mouth felt odd, but he didn't realize that his canine teeth were pushing out, becoming longer and sharper. His face changed, taking on the mien of a vampire, without actually twisting into the game face that the local vamps took on in their blood lust.

He clutched onto the sink tighter, his restraint little more than hair fine. In that position it took five long minutes for the changes to recede, returning him to his normal appearance. As it did, his awareness of the warm, living, blood-filled bodies behind him faded.

Sound came back, as both the elation and the blood rushing in his ears started to subside. Whimpering and the quiet voice of someone praying filtered in from behind him over the noise of his own breathing.

He looked down at the sink and let it go in shock. He had gripped it so hard that finger groves were now dug into the stainless steel and the Formica countertop that ran along the edge had palm marks crushed into it. Someone whimpered again and he turned to see his classmates piled up and shaking along the far wall.

Xander took one slightly stumbling and confused step toward them. That one step overloaded their terror. Eye's blank with horror some of them broke and ran. The rest either passed out, or huddled in on them selves, sliding down the wall to end up as a shaking mass on the floor.

"Kid, get out of here."

If Xander had not been as shocked as his classmates, he might have cared where that voice came from. However right now, it was the push he needed to grab his schoolbooks and run.

* * *

Xander hit the door of the thankfully empty boy's bathroom and tumbled into the room, tossing his books down next to one of the sinks. Carefully gripping the porcelain edge of the basin, he took a second to catch his breath before turning on the cold water. Cupping it in his hands, he splashed it on to his face in a couple of applications. Foregoing the paper towels, he wiped the excess off with his right hand as he looked up into the mirror on the wall above of counter.

"Holy crap!"

Xander stumbled backwards and found that he was sitting on one of the toilet seats. He had moved away from the mirror so fast he'd ended up in one of the stalls and he was fairly certain that he'd just broken the door to this one. His eyes flicked from it and back to the mirror as he stood. He saw it, but his mind did not want to process it. Because, while he did reflect in the glass's surface, the image was weaker and waterier than the stuff he'd just splashed on his face.

"What the hell is going on?"

"I would have thought you remembered enough from Halloween to figure that out."

Xander was sure that he could feel the blood and breath in his body slow and freeze. With a mounting sense of horror, he turned over his left hand to look at the palm of it.

"Just, don't freak out kid."

Of course, that's exactly what he did.

* * *

Xander slammed into the doors of the library with enough force that by sound and action the move was equal to that of an explosion.

"G-Man..." Whatever Xander was going to say trailed off as he took in the presence of the annoyed librarian, two police officers, a woman he would have made bets on being a police detective and for some reason, Cordelia, although the cheerleader did appears as if she'd been about to leave.

"Xander, please be more careful with the doors, actually, just be more careful."

"Uhhh."

Cordelia rolled her eyes at him and dismissed Xander with a little shake of her head before wandering out of the library.

Feeling swamped by how surreal his day had become, Xander watched her go for a moment. He returned his attention to Giles once she was out of the room. The librarian was in the act of reaching behind the checkout desk. He pulled a set of keys out of one of the cubbyholes and he tossed to the teen. Xander plucked them out of the air effortlessly, his body moving without conscious thought.

"Xander, I have to be off campus for a time. Lock up and put out the closed sign as you leave, please. You can slide the keys in through the book drop and I'll collect them later."

Xander nodded to the back of Giles' head as the librarian, the detective and the two officers left.

"Man, you just can not catch a break, can you kid?"

Xander grit his teeth, barely managing not to give into the impulse to clench his left hand until the little face in his palm would cry out from the pain of it.

* * *

Xander put out the closed sign and locked the door, from the inside. He turned out the lights closest to the entrance and headed over to the main reading table, tossing the keys onto it before sitting down heavily in one of the chairs. Resting his elbows on the table, he brought his left hand up to eye level to ask it one simple question.

"How?"

The small, wizened face in the palm of his hand smiled up at him in a mix of emotion. His expression slightly embarrassed, strangely hopeful and suspiciously happy.

"Do you want to elaborate on that question?"

Xander glared at the face and it blinked. It was the first time it could actually understand why the kid had retained so much of D after the spell had ended.

"How are you here?" Xander asked him. "You're fictional. So is D. And even if you weren't, you should still be with him. Besides, I looked you guys up. Hell, I even managed to rent the video. It doesn't quite match with what I remember, but it's close. And if I ever find that little girl again, I'm telling her mother to get a new babysitter.

Left Hand chuckled at the last line. He had always wondered what would happen if D's sense of humour could unearth itself from the persona he usually showed people. With Xander, he might actually find out.

"How much do you remember about D?" He asked the ranting teen.

Xander leaned back and slide down lower into his seat. "Everything, well, sort of. "

That gave the parasite pause. "Really? And what do you mean by, sort of?"

Xander shrugged. "Accessing specific memories is difficult, and there are holes, although those feel artificial. Almost as if some outside force had managed to alter some of the memories. But I can't think of who would actually be able to do that to D."

"Can't you?"

Xander swallowed dryly. Yeah, he could think of one such person.

"Okay, yeah, HE could have done it. I don't know why he would have, but half of what that guy does make's little to no sense to me and was there a point to your first question?"

"Do you remember how my kind reproduces?"

Xander looked vaguely ill; he'd wondered why that memory had insisted on visiting his nightmares. Looked like the reason was in his left hand. "You break off a piece of yourself and insert it into a person. It matures in whatever part of the body it went into until it gains enough power to take over, making that body…. Oh my God, you didn't."

"Yep, I left a piece of myself behind when the spell ended. I'm Left Hand second edition. I know everything my predecessor did up until the split. As for being fictional… I think that spell actually pulled from other realities when it could. It was probably easier than building characters from scratch."

Xander looked at the thing in horror. The little face sort of shrugged, or at least it gave the impression of shrugging. "It wasn't intentional. Being connected to D means I wouldn't normally be able to do it anyway. The spell was just an odd enough event that it shook what binds me, breaking off a little piece that stayed behind when it ended.

In shock, Xander stood up, slowly turned and moved towards the book cage.

"Uh, where are you going?"

"To get a sword," Xander said, mechanically.

"Why?"

"SO I CAN CUT YOU OFF OF ME!" Xander shouted.

"I'd just reconnect myself."

"Not if I pinned you to the floor and cut you off from all four elements."

Left Hand winced. Oh yeah, the kid definitely had D's memories. Worse, he also suspected that the kid had the backbone to go through with taking his hand off. Moreover, being cut off from earth, air, water and fire would weaken the parasite, possibly enough that Xander could kill him.

Xander pulled the mesh door of the book cage open and walked over to the weapon's cabinet inside. He gave the door to it a useless shake, finding it locked. Giles probably had the key on him. Unless there was another one on the set of keys Giles left him.

Xander stalked back to the table and snatched up the keys, turning them over in his right hand. With a growl of disgust, he dropped them back onto the wooden tabletop. None of them was the right size to open the cabinet.

"Kid, you don't really want to do it, do you? I mean, you would have to go through the rest of your life with only one hand. Besides, I can be useful."

"Great, but while you're being useful, I'll be dead. Having a parasitic whatever take over my body isn't on my too do list." Xander scrunched up his face in painful memory. "At least, not this week."

Left hand chuckled lightly, ignoring Xander's glower. "I don't think you have to worry about it. After all, I couldn't take over D, so I shouldn't be able to take you over." It sort of shook its head. "Trust me to land in a dhampir both times."

Xander sat down suddenly, on the floor.

"What?" His voice squeaked, but he was in no condition to care how much he suddenly sounded like Minnie Mouse.

"Oh, you hadn't figured that part out yet, huh? You must have kind of missed the whole drank blood, gave your brand new biology a kick-start, terrified everyone in a thirty or so foot radius and became somewhat reflectively challenged."

"I didn't drink blood, I was just soothing a cut finger." Xander looked at the aforementioned appendage, quickly turning his attention elsewhere when he realized that the wound had healed. "As for the rest, I plan to cheerfully repress it."

"Not something you can really afford to do."

Xander slowly pulled himself up onto the closest chair and sat. "How do I get rid of you?"

Left Hand shook his head, as much as he could. Why did he always get the straightforward ones? "You don't kid, not if you know what's good for you."

Xander sat up straight. "Was that a threat?"

Left Hand made an annoyed sound. "No, dammit kid, don't you understand? If you weren't as strong as you are not only would you not have been able to resist trying to drink more of your own blood, but the class you just left would be filled with dead, drained bodies. Not whimpering ones."

Xander blinked at being called strong, but shook his head, dismissing the statement.

"You are going to need help kid. You need someone to remind you when you are about to do something… unfortunate. Why do you think D is willing to put up with me … or parent me? Sure, I could bring him back to life if things got out of hand, but what I really did was remind him of what the wrong path would be so that he could take the right one. You are a dhampir kid. You can't get away from that. Even with D's memories, if you don't have someone to show you the ropes you will, sooner or later, screw up big time."

"And you're going to show me these ropes?" Xander's tone bordered on sarcastic, which meant that his natural defence mechanism had finally woken up.

"You know anyone else that could? I mean, sure, you could go to that Angel guy…"

Xander shuddered.

"That's what I thought."

"I have a better idea," Xander said. "I talk to Giles and he gets rid of the rest of the spell. Then both you and what's left of D, goes away." Xander had to smirk as the little face twisted up in annoyance.

"Yeah, I suppose you could do that. It might even have worked, normally. However, given that I think Janus is pissed at you, I doubt it will."

"You're telling me that I have a Roman god ticked at me?"

"Well, you and D. However, that guy has more than enough troubles and is possibly unreachable, so he's probably safe enough. You however…

"Hey, anything that happened that night was all D's fault. Well, okay, really, it was that guy Ethan's fault, but D is next in line and I can't believe that I'm bothering to argue this with you. I'm talking to Giles and you are going down."

"Fine!" Left hand said in a snit and clearly at the end of his patience.

"Fine." Xander agreed, equally snitty.

"Good!" Left Hand said, glaring.

"Double good." Xander threw back. "You'll be gone before I know it."

"Yep."

Xander closed his eyes and planted his face into his right hand. "I'm completely screwed, aren't I?"

"Uh huh."

* * *

Xander wandered zombie like through the rest of his classes. This didn't make it much different from any other day. Sadly, he discovered that the effect that their group had not so lovingly nicknamed Sunnydale Syndrome was not as good at covering for him as it was for most other supernatural events.

The majority of the other members of the Home Ec. class had gone home sick. The principal's office had officially declared the mass illness as being due to food poisoning. Those few who managed to convince themselves that nothing had happened, attempted to continue their school day. It was a bad choice, as they tended to break down into hysterics when Xander passed them in the halls. He could only hope that the full Sunnydale Syndrome would kick in by tomorrow, because he didn't think he could take one more student falling apart in front of him, because of him.

"Okay, what is with everyone? You'd think somebody had died, again."

Xander had to shake his head and yet he couldn't help but smile at the same time, as Cordelia came abreast of him. Normally he would have found her presence to be annoying, but right now, she was a breath of fresh air in the morbidly stagnant and still somewhat terrified hallways.

Cordelia gave a large sigh. "Bad enough that today is trying for weird, but I'm going to have to spend tomorrow morning, a Saturday no less, in class, with you."

Xander groaned. He had completely forgotten about tomorrow's remedial computer class.

* * *

On the way home from school Xander almost jumped out of his skin when his left hand reminded him that it could talk and started to do so. "So kid, how come you have to go to school tomorrow?"

Xander quickly check the area around him, to make sure that no one would notice him talking to what would appear to be thin air. "I'm not doing so well in my computer class. Something I would have thought you would have know about, since you've been here since Halloween." He started walking home again, keeping an eye out for anyone who might wander into listening range.

"Normally, sure, but my birthing took a little longer than usual. There was only a very small bit of the original me left behind, so I took longer to mature than I normally would. Also, even though your body hadn't completely acknowledged it, you are a dhampir and I had to fight against that as well. I didn't really wake up until a couple of days ago."

"Oh."

"But back to my original question, why are you doing so badly at computers? D knew quite a bit about them. He'd worked with them since they were first invented. So even though these are completely primitive, you still shouldn't have any problems with them."

Xander winced. "Yeah, I have D's memories, but like I said, sort of. Over the last few days, most of them have… I don't know… slotted…? themselves into their own place in my mind and I try not to go there too much, especially for technical information. I tried to tap into them early on. "Xander sighed and shrugged. "I knew that D knew a lot of languages, so I figured hey, French class, easy A. Except that when the teacher walked in and said Bonjour, I got everything all at once and passed out."

"Yeah, but how's your French now?"

Xander gave his forehead a rub, as if he were fighting off a headache. "Fluent. But I really don't want to try that again."

"You may have to, at some point." His hand seemed to mull things over for a moment. "You really are lucky, you know."

"Lucky?"

"Yeah, if your body hadn't decided to keep the physical along with the mental it would be a real mess. All those memories without a dhampir's or vampire's ability to store them? They would have driven you crazy and catatonic in a matter of days."

"Why would being a vampire make you store memories differently?"

"Well think about it. Vampires and some dhampirs live a long time. After a few thousand years you could run out of places to put memories if your brain didn't take advantage of all of its space and arrange them properly."

Xander wobbled and sat down suddenly on someone's lawn. "A few… THOUSAND… years?"

"You had to know how old D was."

Xander rubbed at his forehead again, the headache now fully realized. "Yeah I know, but I didn't think…. Will I be like that too? Arggg. What am I saying; of course I won't, because Giles and the guys will fix this. Ha!"

Left Hand heaved out a great sigh, but decided to let the boy have his delusions, for now.

* * *

The next morning, far too bright and early for a Saturday, Xander, Willow, Cordelia and Ms. Calendar were walking down the hall at Sunnydale High, kibitzing good naturally about the unnaturalness of school on a Saturday and how computers were on the way out.

As Ms. Calendar opened the classroom, Xander looked over at the library, which was just across the hall. It seemed that Giles hadn't been back yesterday. The closed sign still hung in exactly the same position he had placed it in when locking up and the light he had gone and forgotten to turn off at the back of the library was still on.

Guess that meant that even maintenance hadn't been in to clean the space yet. Well, he still had the keys. Being a little preoccupied at the time by his left hand he had forgotten to slide them through the book return. He could go in and turn the lights off after class.

Miss Calendar was just starting her instructions when a worried Buffy showed up, wanting to talk to Miss Calendar about Giles. Apparently he hadn't shown up for a meeting with Buffy the night before and when she went to check on him at his place he wouldn't let her in and appeared to have been drinking.

"None of you have noticed anything different about him lately, have you?" Buffy asked.

Both Willow and Jenny replied in the negative.

"You haven't seen anything weird?"

"He was with some cops yesterday afternoon." A hoarse voice said.

Everyone turned to look at Xander, who started to cough into his left hand. "Sorry," he said weakly, "Frog in my throat."

Cordelia nodded to what she believed was Xander's previous statement. "He seemed perfectly normal when he was talking to them."

Xander gave one more little cough. "Do you know what they were talking about? I came in just as Giles and they were leaving."

"Oh, I know this one… it was a homicide."

"That's it, I'm calling him." Buffy turned to leave the classroom.

"Buff." Buffy turned back to Xander and caught the keys he threw her. "You might as well use the phone in the library, it's closest."

Buffy looked a little surprised that Xander had the keys, but she didn't bother to say anything about it and just nodded and left. She crossed the hall and unlocked the door to the library, flipping the lights on as she entered. She headed for the phone at the desk, and then stopped, frowning. Narrowing her eyes, she looked up towards the stacks on the mezzanine level, certain that she had just heard a noise from that direction.

* * *

As Buffy left, Xander sadly turned back to his computer and Ms. Calendar continued the lesson. They were about fifteen minutes into it when the sound of crashing glass and physical violence came from the direction of the library. As one, they stood and raced across the hall, entering the library just in time for Xander to grab onto Ethan Rayne as he attempted to escape. Xander hadn't realize just how much stronger he was now. He would have had little trouble holding him, despite the sorcerer's attempts to struggle free.

What Xander also did not realize was just how angry he was with this man. Angry enough that the desire to rip a bleeding hole in his throat and drink from it slammed into him so hard that he froze. Shocked, Xander lost his grip on him. Luckily, Cordelia was up for the challenge. She kicked the mage in the groin as he tried to pass her on the way out the door. The man folded up and hit the ground, clutching at some of his very private bits.

Taking a shaky breath and trying shake off the surge of bloodlust, Xander turned his attentions back to Buffy, who was fighting what appeared to be some kind of zombie. Not trusting himself to move just yet, he watched as she tossed that thing into the open book cage, shutting and locking the door on it.

* * *

A very annoyed Buffy hauled Ethan up off the floor and dragged him back into the library to drop him painfully into a chair. Willow and Ms. Carpenter went over to the cage to look at what Buffy had shoved in there earlier and Xander joined them, trying to keep an eye on both the dead guy and the guy he suspected he wanted dead.

After a few minutes watching the guy in the cage pace back and forward, Willow shook her head and moved away, to stand closer to Buffy.

"I'm not gonna get close enough to feel his pulse, but... he looks dead."

Xander shook his head at what Willow had just said. Of course the guy was dead. He didn't have a heartbeat. He winced as he realized that he was probably the only one in the room that could tell just by listening that the muscle in that guy's chest was silent. He winced a second time as he realized that he had extended his senses to check on that, without consciously intending to do so.

"He's dead. Sorry, Philip. Really I am." Ethan sounded like he might actually be sad about that for all of a couple of minutes. Which, when Xander thought about it, was two minutes longer than he thought the mage would care.

Giles burst into the library, Buffy had called him shortly before the zombie attack. "Is everyone alright?"

"Super!" Cordelia said, "I kicked a guy!"

"We're okay." Ms. Calendar added in.

"Deadguy here interrupted our tutorial." Xander turned to address said dead guy. "Been meaning to thank you for that." Phillip lunged at him and Xander shied back, clutching his left hand closed when it started to chuckle. Thankfully, everyone was a little too busy with other problems to notice. It wasn't that he didn't intend to tell everyone what was going on. In fact, with Ethan here it would have been a good time to get help for his Halloween hangover, if it just hadn't been for the dead guy in the cage.

A dead guy that Giles apparently knew. And if the way he and Ethan were reacting to each other was a clue, then the two of them probably went back a ways as well.

Xander realized that he was enjoying watching Giles hold the spell caster up by his hair just a little too much.

"I would have thought you would have had enough sense to leave town after Halloween."

"Well, you know me Ripper." Ethan gasped out in some pain. "Couldn't go leaving when I still had the shop leased to the end of the month."

Giles let go of Ethan and looked at the man with an expression that said he was about to do more to him than just a little hair pulling.

"Giles?" Buffy ask, in a tone that while uncertain also said she wasn't about to let him dodge an explanation for what was going on. Sadly, before she and the rest of them could pile up on Giles and make him spill, Phillip chose that moment to break out of the cage. The door swung open hard, knocking Ms. Calendar to the floor. Xander grabbed Cordelia, moving the two of them out of the way so that Buffy could come in and lay some whoop ass down on the dead guy. She was just getting into her groove when Phillip suddenly got a strange look on his face and collapsed into a green puddle of goo.

'Now, there's something you don't see everyday." Willow said, looking down at the puddle in shock.

Cordelia agreed with her. "I'm gonna be in therapy till I'm thirty. "

"Hey, Ethan's bolted."

"Man, Xander," Cordelia said, "You need to do something about that throat problem."

Xander gave a slight cough as Buffy ran out into the halls to see if she could track Ethan.

Ms Calendar gave a small twitch and came too. Giles helped her up, fussing as he did.

Xander waited until Buffy came back, having not found Ethan. Then he slipped out of the library.

"So, where are we going?" Left Hand asked.

"The costume shop. If he stayed because he had a lease on it, then he probably doesn't have anywhere else to go."

"Given the damage we caused Halloween night I'm surprised the place would be liveable. Still, I suppose it was mostly cosmetic."

"Mmm."

"Kid, what are you going to do with him if you do find him there?"

"Make him tell me how to get rid of the rest of this spell, then drag him back here so we can find out what the hell is going on with him and Giles and Deadguys."

"Works."

* * *

Giles blew off Buffy's questions and left to take Ms. Calendar home. Not willing to let this lie, Buffy got Willow checking through Giles book for the Mark of Eyghon thing Ethan had been talking about when she first found him. She sent a slightly reluctant Cordelia off to check into Giles' personal records and she vowed to throttle Xander just as soon as he came back from wherever it was that he'd run off to.

* * *

The shop Ethan had rented for Halloween had its windows boarded up with plywood as the glass had been destroyed when D had gone and split Janus in half. The inside was near empty. All of the shelving and counters were gone; no doubt because they were all now so much twisted debris. The parts for a couple of mannequins that had survived were piled up to one side of the room. The walls of the shop still held, although they looked like they'd been pelted with a small tornadoes worth of junk that someone was slowly patching up.

"You know, I'm probably never going to get my deposit back because of you." Ethan stepped out from the back room.

"My heart breaks." Xander told him.

"I'm surprised you're the one who came. I was rather expecting the Slayer."

"I'm sure she's busy, besides, there are things I need to ask you."

"After you." Ethan gestured for Xander to move past him towards the back rooms. Xander wasn't exactly comfortable doing so, but he started to move that way anyway. As soon as he stepped past the magician, his left hand whipped up of its own accord and caught the arm of a mannequin that Ethan swung at the back of his head. The hand yanked it from Ethan's grip as Xander turned back to the mage and he tossed the arm to the other side of the room.

Ethan made an unmanly eep sound as Xander grabbed him by the throat by one hand and lifted him a couple of feet before slamming him into a wall, adding more damage to it.

Ethan gasped and clutched at Xander's hand, trying to pry it free. Snarling the teen let him go suddenly and the mage collapsed to the ground, coughing and wheezing. If Ethan had looked up at Xander at that moment the expression on the boy's face would have caused him to wet himself.

"Kid, if you want to know what's what, then let me have a go at him."

Xander hesitated for a moment, and then nodded.

Ethan finally got control of his breathing and looked up just in time to see a small face in the palm of a hand coming towards him, before it latched onto his forehead.

* * *

"Halloween or the Eyghon thing first?" Asked Left Hand's slightly muffled voice.

"Grr, Argg. Eyghon." Much as he wanted a fix for his problem, current dangers were more important.

Under Left Hand's influence, Ethan spilled it all. How when they were young they found a great high by letting Eyghon possess them and how one day it all went wrong and they had to kill one of their group to stop the demon. They thought they were free of the thing, but somehow it had made its way back into the 'real' world.

"So you and Giles are the only two left from the group and it's coming for both of you."

"Yes." Ethan replied, somewhat mechanically.

"Halloween now?" A muffled horse voice asked.

"How do I get rid of the rest of the Halloween spell?"

Ethan blinked. "You still remember all that you were that night."

"Yes."

"Nothing to get rid of. Magic favours you."

"What?"

"Magic favours you. There are probably a few others out there that did not lose all they were that night, for the same reason. Magic just seems to work… well, not better, so much as more for a select few. Of course, it does tend to cause some spells to act oddly."

"Such as?"

Ethan shrugged. "Well, if you tried a love spell, instead of just getting the person you wanted you'd probably get every female in a ten block radius."

"Ah, note to self, never use a love spell." Xander said, with just a little regret.

"Okay, that explains memory, but I also have a… Medical condition that the person I dressed as had and I didn't have it before your spell came along."

Ethan smiled, clearly amused by what he had wrought that night, but as he was still under Left Hand's control, not able to fully express it. "I do hope it's something embarrassing and sexually transmitted." Xander's left hand tightened on Ethan's forehead and the mage grunted in mild pain. "To answer your implied question, I suspect Janus bumped up the effect. Believe me; he is very unhappy about having his fun that night spoiled. And, before you ask, no, I can't get rid of it for you. If I tried I would probably get my face melted off and you wouldn't be any further along than you all ready are."

Xander slumped and Left Hand let go of the mage. "Well, you can always talk to the librarian. He might know something this idiot doesn't."

"True." Xander said, trying to be optimistic, his body slumping again as he failed miserably at it.

"So what are we doing now?"

Xander grabbed hold of a recovering Ethan and pulled him into the back rooms, looking for a phone. Thankfully, there was one near the back door and it still had tone. The shop must not have been the only thing that Ethan had paid for until the end of the month.

* * *

"Xander where are you? Buffy's going to kill you." Willow told him frantically over the phone.

"Chill, Wills…heh, I rhymed."

"Xander!"

"Sorry, sorry. I tracked down that Ethan guy at the costume shop and … well, he told me everything."

"Did he tell you that Ms. Carpenter was probably possessed by the demon? 'Cause it can only take over dead bodies and unconscious live ones."

Xander glared Ethan, who was still trying to shake off the effect of Left Hand forcing him to be truthful. "No, somehow we missed that part."

"Buffy's gone over to help Giles. We're trying to figure out some way to get Eyghon out of Ms. Calendar without killing her."

Xander's left hand rose up of its own accord so it was close to the telephone receiver. "All you have to do is convince the demon that you are about to destroy the person it's in and have a dead body near by for it to pass into." Left Hand's harsh voice told her.

"Wow, Cordelia's right, you should really see someone about your throat."

"Willow, focus."

"Okay, sure we could do that, but it wouldn't kill the demon it would just give it a change of scenery. " There was a pause and even over the phone, Xander could almost see the light bulb that went off over Willow's head. "Oh, oh, I've got it. You said you're at the costume shop?"

"Yeah."

"Stay there, we'll come to you."

"Sure." Xander said, reaching out to grasp the back of Ethan's shirt as the man made a first step towards sneaking away. "See you in a bit." He finished and hung up the phone.

"Now, what are we going to do with you until they get here?"

* * *

When Buffy came into the shop she found Ethan tied and gagged and sitting on the floor in the middle of the store. Xander was leaning against the back wall. He waved at her with the mannequin arm he was holding as she entered.

"Hey Buff, how's Giles?"

"Xander." She looked from him, to Ethan and back to him. "I'm really annoyed with you at the moment and Giles is mostly alright. Sad to say, he told me everything."

"Ditto for this guy here. I talked to Willow. She and Cordelia are on their way here and Wills has a plan for fixing this. Although I'm not sure where she is hoping to get a dead body on such short notice."

Buffy looked slightly ill at that last part and obviously decided to ignore it. "Were the ropes and gag necessary?"

"Yep. If he wasn't trying to sneak away then he was trying to talk me into letting him go. Besides, the restraints were all sitting in the back room, just waiting to be used. Probably on one of us."

Ethan attempted a puppy dog look at the Slayer and got a snort of derision for his efforts. He sighed through his gag and slumped down in his bonds.

* * *

Xander had walked around the shop five times and counted the number of unpatched holes in the walls twice by the time the girls arrive with Angel in tow. Xander frowned at the vampire for a few seconds until his amused companion quietly said something.

"Heh, a dead body."

Xander had to chuckle at that, which of course caused everyone to look at him. He shook his head at their looks, conveying that he had no intention of explaining what he was laughing at.

"Well," Buffy said, looking around. "It looks like the gangs all here. So now all we need is th…"

A sick green light suddenly outlined the front door. It leaked in at the bottom of the entrance to ooze its way across the threshold and into the room. The door started to rattle in its casing. Everyone close to it took a step back and Ethan made a very distressed, if muffled sound and tried to scrunch back as well.

The door burst open and everyone was horrified to see what had become of Ms. Calendar since the demon had gotten hold of her. Her face appeared to be desiccated and the bones had obviously shifted into a position that was reminiscent of a vampire's game face. Her ears had grown out pointed and her skin was spotted and holed, showing darkened flesh and bone underneath.

"Ethan." It hissed out, moving towards the bound mage. "It's your time." The voice was deep and male and nothing at all like Ms. Calendars.

The now demon Calendar leapt towards Ethan, who screamed into his gag. She did not make it. Angel tackled her from the side in mid air. The two of them landed hard and struggled to right themselves. Angel won by little more than a second and grabbed Ms. Calendar by the throat, choking her.

Giles entered the mess right then, stopping in shock as it took a few moments to process what was happening in the shop.

"Angel, no, you're killing her."

He moved to help her, but Willow and Cordelia grabbed him.

"But he's killing her."

"No, it's okay." Willow said. "Trust me, this is going to work."

Angel suddenly dropped Jenny, his body slamming up against the nearest wall as if he'd been thrown. Giles staggered over to the teacher and collapsed to his knees next to her, almost in tears to see that she was herself once again.

Angel started to convulse, his face shifting from Eyghon, to game face, to his normal face until with one push the vampire ejected Eyghon. Without a body to jump into the demon simply dissolved into ash.

Xander had to admit, Willow was brilliant. Not only had she gotten the thing to change bodies, but she had also gotten it to go into one that already had a demon in it. When it came to that kind of possession, co-habitation was not an option.

Once all the congratulations and thank goodness that's over were over, Xander looked down at the still tied and gagged Ethan.

"So, what do we do with him?"

* * *

Life was going back to normal. Well, as normal as it ever did in Sunnydale. With some sadness, Xander sat and watched from a hallway bench as Ms. Calendar distanced herself from Giles. Buffy walked up to the librarian as the teacher was leaving. In contrast to the previous conversation Xander had observed, the Watcher's and his Slayer's relationship appeared solid. They talked a bit while walking off towards the library for a training session. Ethan ought to have fun watching it from the book cage. After all he needed something to do while waiting for someone from the Watcher's council to come pick him up. Apparently, Rayne had made a nuisance of himself in several magical communities around the world, including the council. All of them were currently fighting it out to see which of them would get to express their displeasure with him first.

"Well?"

Xander reluctantly turned the palm of his left hand over so he could talk to the little face that had just appeared in it. "Well what?"

"When are you going to tell them?"

Xander shrugged, and then stood up, shouldering the book bag that had been sitting next to him on the bench. "Don't know. I just know that it isn't today."

"I wouldn't leave it too long. I mean, I'd rather nothing get done and I rather doubt that anything can be done, but I could be wrong. If I am, then the sooner the better, if you know what I mean."

Xander walked out of the school and headed for home. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Still…" He breathed in the fall air, sensing and cataloguing a variety of scents that he usually never noticed. "Sometimes it doesn't seem all that bad."

Left Hand mulled over keeping his mouth shut. To be honest though, it was just not in his nature. "That's because it hasn't fully kicked in yet."

Xander stumbled slightly. "What?"

"You see, you're only what, sixteen?"

Xander nodded.

"So you're only just maturing."

"Hey!"

Left Hand gave a snort of laughter. "As a dhampir you won't come into your full powers and bloodlust until you are physically eighteen or nineteen. Depending on how slowly you age now that your body has changed, that could be anywhere from two years to fifteen years from now."

Xander winced at the thought of not making it to eighteen for another ten years. Still, it was better than not making it at all. He winced again as that brought up another thought.

"Wait, you mean that what I've already experienced was actually a light version of bloodlust?"

"Yep."

Xander cast his mind back to the couple of times he had felt that want and started to shake.

"Kid?"

"I…. I wouldn't be able to stop myself if it was worse."

"Don't sell yourself short kid. I think you've got more backbone than you realize. And if you are stuck with it, I'll be here to annoy you until you do the right thing."

Xander stopped and looked at his hand. "I seem to recall several times when you've tried to convince D to 'follow his nature.'

"Sure, because if there is one thing I know about that lug it's that if I suggest something, he'll do the opposite. So, hoping that you won't follow D's example I'll suggest it again, tell them. Even if they can't help they need to know what's up with you in case anything happens. At the very least it would be good if they knew what to do if you ever come down with heat syndrome."

"Oh, burying myself in the back yard, that will be fun."

"Hey, if you're lucky you'll only have to do it every few years like D, instead of every month like most other dhampir."

"If I'm lucky I won't have to do it at all."

"Yeah kid, but are you ever that lucky?"

Xander didn't say anything. He just shifted the bag on his shoulder into a more comfortable position and continued his walk home. He would put Left Hand's last question out of his mind, because he already knew the answer.

And it was no.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Not mine? Surely, you must be mistaken… Oh, well shucks.

Author's note: Warning, this chapter contains character deaths.

A Hunter's Tale or How Did We Get from Here to There

By Colleen

Chapter 3

_Isn't this a strange conversation, for men who aren't crazy? ~Renfield, Dracula 1931_

A little over a week later and Xander still had not told the others what was going on or to ask for help. Oddly, this really annoyed Left Hand. He couldn't figure out what Xander was waiting for, but then again, he couldn't figure out why he'd want the kid to get help in the first place. That Giles guy might be trying to live the straight and narrow now, but it was obvious that he could still pull from his less than savoury past. He might just be able to reverse the Halloween spell. That could leave the little carbuncle dead or non-existent to start with and he was purely interested in existing, thank you very much.

Xander could not have told him why he was suddenly so reluctant to get rid of the after effects of the Halloween spell. Sure, he was stronger, healed faster and seemed to have his thoughts better organized than ever before, but he also felt completely wrong. His body didn't seem to fit him any more and he was terrified that he would once again feel the desire for someone's blood.

Maybe the reason he kept putting it off was the suspicion that they couldn't help him and he just wasn't ready to give up on that last little bit of hope. He sighed, shook his head and wandered over to join Cordelia at the bulletin board where they had just posted the results for the Career Aptitude Tests they had taken the day before. While he thought that the test was a waste of time and rather odd to boot, he was still curious about what future it would predict for him and it would distract him from his other thoughts.

"Oh, here I am. 'Personal shopper or motivational speaker.' Neato!" Cordelia said, as Xander tried to peer at the list over her shoulder.

"The shopper I can understand, but exactly who are you supposed to motivate?" Left Hand managed to get his quip in before Xander could voice his own, which annoyed him, because his was going to be funnier.

Cordelia's eyes narrowed and she flipped to the H section of the list to look up Xander. "Let's see, you're a… Well, that's weird."

"What?"

She moved aside to let him at the list. He found his name and beside it, instead of a career, there was a note to report to room 213 that afternoon. He checked Willow's name next and found she wasn't even on the list. And Buffy… he winced. Police officer or landscaper. Guess voting for shrubs was a bad thing after all.

* * *

Later that afternoon, while looking over the job fair, Xander was a little surprised to be approached by Principal Snyder. He hadn't expect to see the man again after Willow and he had done the 'Where's Summers, she's around here somewhere' dance. Snyder had stalked off after that conversation, obviously happy to be done with her and Xander for the rest of the afternoon.

"Harris, which one of these are you supposed to be at?"

"Ah, the list just said I was supposed to report to room 213."

Snyder paled and swallowed, as if his throat had suddenly dried out. He gave a slight cough into his fist to clear it. "Well, don't keep them waiting, move it." He turned and left, putting distance between himself and Xander a little faster than usual.

"You ever get the feeling that that guy knows way more than the rest of us?" A hoarse voice asked, seemingly from nowhere.

Xander didn't even blink anymore when being addressed by his left hand. He just nodded in agreement and headed off to his appointment.

* * *

When Xander entered the classroom, he found it rearranged somewhat from the normal desk lined space it usually was. The desks themselves had been moved to the outer edges of the room and a long folding table with a brief case sitting on it and three semi comfortable chairs placed around it sat in the middle of the cleared area. Two men conservatively dressed in dark business suits came around from the other side of the table to introduce themselves as Mr. Green and Mr. Packard. Well, Xander though, it was more original than Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones, though just as unlikely to be real. Neither they, nor Xander, offered to shake hands.

* * *

When Xander showed up at the classroom Mr. Green suppressed a sigh. This goofy young man in the loud shirt must have filled his career test out at random, giving them a false positive. It happened sometimes. They would blather on to him about non-existent career opportunities for a few minutes, and then send him on his way.

As he and his partner came around the table to introduce themselves, something happened that caused Mr. Green to reassess his previous thought. The kid did a check of the room. And not just an exit check, like most newbie's would do. In little more than the space of a breath, he was certain the kid knew where all the exits where, where the light switches were (the windows had their blinds drawn) and what items in the room would make a decent weapon as well as which one he could get to first. He was also armed with something and while Mr. Green could tell where it was, he was not sure what it was. By the time the two recruiters had made it all the way around the table, the teen had also assessed them. If either of them were betting men, they would have laid money down on the kid knowing of at least two of the weapons they each had on them.

The teen had even been somewhat subtle about his check and it appeared to be more of an ingrained habit than a conscious decision. If it wasn't something Mr. Green and Mr. Packard knew to look for from a possible new recruit, they might have missed it.

As usual, neither Mr. Green nor Mr. Packard offered to shake hands. Doing so would tie up a hand that they could use to attack or defend with and they would only do so if it were necessary to their cover at the time.

Interestingly the boy didn't offer to shake either and didn't seem at all uncomfortable with forgoing that ritual.

* * *

Xander let the two men talk on about career advancement, college tuition programs, medical plans, etc for a good ten minutes before he decided he'd had enough.

"Gentlemen." The two men froze, waiting for what he would say next. "While all of this sounds wonderful, I think its time we cut to the chase and you told me exactly what your organization is about. I can already guess that it isn't exactly above board, so let's do a pass on the you threaten me if I talk about it and I threaten you back if you even think about trying something bit and just get to it."

The two men looked at each other, one of them nodding slightly to the other before the first opened the brief case sitting on the table. He pulled out a colourful file sized prospectus and handed it over to Xander. The teen carefully took the folder and laid it down on the table before opening it. He looked at the top introductory page to the work and blinked.

"Oh."

* * *

At the end of his meeting, Xander walked into the library with the safe parts of the folder he had been given under his arm. He was sure he had a dazed look on his face. He met up with Willow, who for some odd reason was looking equally dazed.

"So, Willow, what did you do this afternoon?" Xander asked, putting aside his shock for curiosity. He knew Willow had attended the fair even though she hadn't had a career assigned to her.

"I, ah, attended a proposal from a computer company." Willow said, shaking her head slightly before going to sit down at the reading table.

"Well, that would be a good fit for you." Xander told her.

"Yeah, I guess. Say, how about you? You never said what program you were going to."

Xander looked down at the folder in his hand before dropping it flat onto the table. "I had a meeting with a company called Hyde Research Manufacturing Investments. They're kind of into a bit of everything." Everything from professional bodyguards to helping pull off coups in small countries. Basically, they were mercenaries. Although Xander had to admit, they were high-class mercenaries, not quite A-Team level for job choice morals, but close. "And they offer company training as well as a college tuition program."

"And they're seriously interested in you?" Xander nodded. "That's great!"

Xander made a non-committal noise to that. Buffy and Giles saved him from any further discussion by returning at that moment. He shoved the folder to the side, grateful for the distraction as they told them about the trip to the cemetery they had taken during the job fair.

* * *

An hour or so of fighting off sleep to look through a bunch of Giles' dusty old tomes followed. If only the attempt to scan the librarian's special collection into a computer hadn't released a demon into the internet. It would have been much easier finding out what the book that had been stolen the week before had been about if they had a digital copy. Xander turned a page and glanced at the empty chair that Buffy normally would be sitting in. He was slightly miffed and somewhat jealous that she had managed to bail on this part of a Slayer's duties, especially when all their searching had netted them nothing.

Watching Buffy limp into the library made him realize how much he preferred the boredom of the books.

Xander got an ice pack out of the First Aid kit for her while Giles looked over a ring Buffy had brought him that had belonged to the now dead guy who had just attacked her and Angel. Giles was sufficiently wigged out that he shot down Xander's attempts at levity and suggested that Buffy get out of town for a time.

Xander found his eyes narrowing at the suggestion that Buffy hide. Sure, that might work for the short term, but what should she do after a couple of days? It would be better if she found out who these idiots were and took them out before they did the same to her.

She should not go home, that was obvious. Thankfully, her Mom was already out of town on a buying trip, so they didn't have to worry about her. Before he could suggest that they come up with an alternative place for Buffy to stay for the next couple of days, the Slayer had already stalked out of the library, looking both annoyed and tense at the same time.

Xander and the rest of them spent a few more hours with the books while intermittently trying to phone Buffy's place to no avail. Giles and Willow stayed to slog on further through the books while he headed home for a few hours sleep so he could worry about all of this afresh in the morning.

* * *

After a call the next morning to Giles to find out that Buffy still hadn't resurfaced Xander rousted Cordelia out of bed and got her to drive him over to Buffy's place. It turned out Cordelia wasn't much more of a morning person than he was.

"I can't even believe you. You dragged me out of bed for a ride? What am I, mass transportation?

"Well, if you're going to be a member of the Scooby Gang then you're going to be inconvenienced every now and again." Xander said as he stepped up onto the porch of Buffy's house and knocked on the door. He cocked his head to listen, but the only working sets of lungs in or immediately around the house belonged to him and Cordelia. Still, that didn't mean she wasn't in the house. Xander grimaced, not if she wasn't alive. He started trying the windows, Cordelia voicing her displeasures behind him as he did. When he finally found one that was open, he entered that way, walking around to the front door to let Cordelia in.

"I'll check upstairs, you…. Just stand there." He told the cheerleader, not really trusting her to make a thorough search of the main floor on her own. He headed up the stairs, not bothering to call out Buffy's name as he was fairly certain that she wasn't in the house and was hoping to not find her given what the alternative would be, but checking anyway.

When he came back down, he found Cordelia talking with a makeup salesman. Trust Queen C to find a way to shop just about anywhere. "Hey, what's up?"

Xander blinked as he realized that Cordelia was wigging out. "He's a salesman and he was just leaving." Given the almost pleading quality of her voice, she was moving past wigged and heading towards terrified.

Xander didn't even have a chance to tell the guy to pack it up and get out, because his left hand decided to speak up. "Kid, this guy isn't human."

There was no way he could pass that voice off as his own; Cordelia had been looking right at him. It didn't matter though, as there was no time for damage control or to be angry at the parasite for speaking out of turn. As he watched, a mealworm crawl across the salesman's cheek to disappear into his right ear while the guy just stared at them, unperturbed.

Xander moved to back Cordelia out of the room. "I think it's time to run!"

The salesman actually smirked at them, before dissolving into a giant pile of worms. Xander had every intention of being anywhere but here, his left hand had other ideas. It reached out towards the mass of worms, the small wrinkled face bulging out from his hand a little further than usual as its mouth opened. "Ah, breakfast."

The suction was unimaginable, especially from such a small opening. Thankfully, it focused on the worms, so the rest of the house was not disturbed much. The worms however... In a wiggling fighting stream, they came into his hand. The upper part of the salesman's body, head, arms and torso reformed briefly and tried to crawl away. It lost more and more of itself, finally collapsing back into a pile of insects that was vacuumed up by Xander's left hand. Through all of this, Xander screamed non-stop, his voice joining with Cordelia's as she backed away from him in total freaked out horror. They both fell silent as the last worm was pulled into the hand, the sounds of chewing followed by a burp coming from it.

Xander dropped to his knees and screamed once more as some of what Left Hand had taken in converted to power and became his. It was not as strong as the first taste of his blood had been, but it was still overwhelming. His cry was so violent that he rattled the house's windows in their panes and Cordelia dropped to the floor behind him with her hands over her ears.

When his head cleared enough for him to come back to himself, he found the girl trying to crawl away from him. He closed his eyes briefly in pain. This, he now realized, was why he hadn't said anything to anyone yet, because if they really understood what he was becoming… had become, they would fear him.

Hell, he scared himself.

He pulled himself to his feet. "Cordelia."

She stopped mid crawl and was obviously fighting the desire to shake and possibly whimper.

He took a step towards her and she scrambled to her feet and turned to face him while moving down the hall towards the kitchen and the only other way out of here. "What, what… What was that?"

Xander glared at his left hand, the palm of which was empty of little faces at the moment. He dropped his hand to his side and sighed. "It's complicated."

"No, no, computers are complicated, that's… I… I don't know what that was." She backed up into the kitchen until her back was against the outside door. She reached behind her and fumbled for the knob.

Xander took a deep breath. "I'm not going to hurt you Cordelia and I'm not going to try and stop you from leaving." He watched her for a moment. "And by the way, the door's locked."

She stopped trying to open it and started to feel for the latch.

Xander gave his forehead a rub, and then sighed. "Look, I'll see you back at the library. I doubt you'd be comfortable with me in the car. If you come, I'll explain everything. It's past time I did anyway." He tried to think of something else to say, but couldn't. Shaking his head, he turned and walked through the hallway and out the front door, closing it behind him. He was halfway down the front sidewalk when he heard a voice behind him.

"Xander." He turned to see Cordelia standing in the doorway. "You can ride with me, just stay on your side of the car. Okay?"

Xander almost sagged as he felt a little of the emotional weight that had been threatening to crush him dissolve. He gave her a little half smile and nodded. "Okay."

* * *

To say that the drive back to the library was tense, would be like saying the South Pole gets a little cold at night in the wintertime. They didn't talk to each other and they didn't move much more than Cordelia needed to drive the car, with some minor fidgeting from Xander. When they got to the school, they both kept to the opposite edges of the sidewalk, so as to be as far away from each other as possible. Xander did this to try to give Cordelia some space; Cordelia did this because even if she didn't want to admit it, Xander scared her. And doofuses weren't supposed to scare her.

Not unless it was with their fashion sense.

They both walked into the school through two different doors and stopped dead when they took in what was going on in the halls. People were milling around in lost formation, ignoring the career fair booths while paramedics looked over a few of the students. They seemed to be paying the most attention to Jonathan and… Xander thought the other student's name was Oz, though he wasn't positive. He did remember seeing him performing at the Bronze every now and then though. Surprisingly, Willow was hovering around him and was nervously pumping the paramedic that was bandaging him for information.

"Wills?"

"Oh, Xander, Cordelia." She looked at the confusion around her and decided she just couldn't explain it. "I'll see you guys in the library in a bit. Oh, and Buffy's back."

Cordelia looked around at what had obviously been a messy running battle and rolled her eyes. "Of course she is."

* * *

Kendra had already expressed her confusion with a concept as odd as a slayer with friends who also attended high school. The explanation given by the local Watcher hadn't really cleared any of that up for her. Moreover, given current events she didn't expect to understand anytime soon. She would just have to muddle through this and talk to her own Watcher as soon as she returned home.

School seemed far more dangerous than she'd been led to believe and she was glad she'd never gone. The other slayer, Buffy, had actually gotten hurt in an altercation with the Order of Taraka while attending some sort of lecture. The fight that resulted had spanned a good part of the school and had involved many students and teachers. The fact that the demon population at large could very well know of both of their presences as slayers didn't seem to faze her or the Watcher. Instead of getting her out of there and making sure she couldn't be found, Giles was pulling out the First Aid supplies. Buffy herself was sitting on the checkout counter of the school library, carefully pulling up one of her pant legs to get at her injured knee.

True, this obviously was the Watcher's base of operations, but almost anything in this town might know where his slayer wa…. Her head snapped up towards the door and her eyes widened. Something was coming. Power crackled in the air, preceding its owners by several seconds. She looked to Buffy and Giles, but neither of them seemed to be noticing it.

She knew that she had a greater skill with 'honing' than other slayers had tended to, but she did not know how they could ignore it; it was just that much power. Kendra was quite certain that it must be coming off more than one being. Five or six at a conservative guess. She dropped into stance as the library doors opened and a young man and woman came in. Horrified, she realized that all of that power had entered the room with those two people. She tensed to move, but Buffy stopped her.

"Down girl."

Kendra looked at her in shock. She knew these two? They were friends?

"I can only guess that from what's going on out there that you also had a special visit from the Order of Taraka. "

"Yes, we had a, a rather public and violent visit from them." Giles blinked as he processed what Xander just said. "You've also had a run in?"

Cordelia snorted and was obviously going to launch into the weirdness that was Xander when both them notice Kendra.

This was something the other slayer really wished they hadn't done. She cast her eyes down at the floor. The power in the room was already beating at her skin. Having them actually aim it in her direction only made it worse.

"Oh." Giles said, "Forgive me. Xander, Cordelia, this is Kendra. Uh, it's rather complicated, but she's also a Slayer."

Kendra had excellent skills at reading facial patterns and body language. Even though she appeared to be looking down she watched through her eyelashes as the one called Cordelia gave the one called Xander a look that said she wanted to tell everyone something. The one called Xander gave her a look back that pleaded with her to wait until it was more private. The one called Cordelia crossed her arms in annoyance, but she still nodded once, showing she had agreed and then stalked away to sit at the table.

With that strangely silent conversation over, Xander turned to Kendra. "Hi, it's nice to meet you."

Oh gods, all that power was coming from him. Whatever he was he was out of her league. She was certain he could break her in half without even trying. On top of that, he was male and apparently a friend of the other Slayer. She did not know if she should treat him as an enemy or as a boy. She took one good look at him then cast her eyes back to the floor, her cheeks red with embarrassment. He was very cute.

Boy it was then.

"Uh... I hope... I tank you... I mean, sir, um... I will be of service."

Xander felt as if he'd been hit with a bag of wet cement. The last time anyone had acted like that around him, they had been the humans that were being introduced to him by his father as his own personal servants.

Xander backed off a step, confused. That wasn't his memory, it was D's. Why had it decided to go walkabout in his head now?

Willow saved him from having to say anything as she came in with a "Hey." She moved to help Buffy with the bandaging of her knee.

"Xander, um, this, this, uh, assassin you encountered, what, uh, what did he look like?"

Xander opened his mouth to answer when a loud burp sounded and he felt something land in his left hand.

"Rude much Xander?" Buffy said as she hopped off the counter now that Willow had finished the First Aid. Everyone else except Kendra and Cordelia looked at him with slight disgust. Kendra herself didn't look up and Cordelia looked at his left hand with full revulsion before she gulped and turned a light shade of green. Moaning, she put her head down between her knees in an attempt not to throw up.

Xander looked down to see bug guy's Order ring in his left hand. "It doesn't much matter what he looked like, 'cause he's dead." He handed a surprised Giles the ring. "But basically he looked like a giant pile of walking worms."

"Eww." Willow and Buffy said together and Cordelia joined them with another moan.

* * *

Apparently the book searching Giles and Willow had gotten up to the night before had paid off. Not only did they know that the missing book was a ritual that was probably meant to cure Drusilla of her infirmities, they also knew that it would need to take place in a church on the new moon and that Drusilla's sire would need to be present.

Of course, it turned out that Angel was Drusilla's sire and tonight was the new moon.

* * *

Sometimes it was helpful that slimy bad guys were sometimes stupid enough to believe that the good guys wouldn't try to trick them. Buffy let Willy the snitch 'capture' her and bring her to Spike at the church were the ritual was taking place. Spike, a couple of vampire minions and the last Tarakan assassin were rather put out to have Kendra and the rest of the Scoobies arrive right behind them.

Xander had brought a sword from Giles' weapon collection. While somewhat shorter and thicker than the type of sword D normally favoured it still felt right in his hand. He went after the policewoman assassin, Patrice. Kendra was keeping Spike busy. Giles, Willow and Cordelia had their hands full with the minions and all of this gave Buffy a clear path to Angel.

He and Drusilla were strapped together, with one of Angel's hands attached to a chain above him. His hand clasped Drusilla's, a knife pinning their two hands together. Buffy raced up to the altar, barely avoiding the fighting going on around her. She leapt up beside the Angel and Drusilla and reached up, grabbed the knife and pulled it free, stopping the exchange of power that was happening between the two vampires.

"No!"

Spike tossed Kendra away from him, sending her flying to crash into one of the few lonely pews that were still in the church. Buffy looked from the blonde vampire and back to Angel, whom she wouldn't be able to free before Spike was on them. Desperate, she did what would get him away from Drusilla the fastest.

She staked her.

"No." Spike whispered, still only half way to the altar as he watched his love look at him with startled eyes and disintegrate into a small tornado of dust.

"NO!"

Buffy caught Angel with her left arm and turned to face Spike, the stake she had just killed Drusilla with in clutched in her right hand.

* * *

Off to the side Xander had been proving that you could bring a sword to a gunfight.

Even though Left Hand had obviously decided that it would be best not to talk to Xander until he was less pissed at him, he was still defending by plucking bullets out of the air and spitting them back out in contempt. Not having to worry about defence Xander moved in until he was able to disarm her with one move.

And take her head with another.

Xander wasn't as fast with a blade as D was. That man could have made the cut so quickly that the blood wouldn't have had time to adhere to the sword. He watched for a moment as red dripped down the steel of the blade, then gave it a flick to shed as much of it as he could. He would think about what he had just done, later.

His attention jerked back to the fight as he heard Spike scream out a denial. Reacting without thought, he stabbed out at the passing vampire, piercing him in his side.

Spike snarled at him, all fangs. "And just what was that supposed to accomplish."

Xander pulled the sword back out with a grunt from the vampire. "It was supposed to distract you." He said, just before he ducked.

Spike looked back around just in time to feel stakes enter his body from the front and back. He had a moment to realize that Buffy and the 'other' slayer had both thrown from where they were standing in the church. Both of them had gotten him in the heart.

"Dru…"

Spikes body dispersed into dust to rain down gently on the red carpeting that ran the length of the church.

* * *

A couple of days later Kendra had headed home, Angel was on the mend, Xander's Home Ec. class had requested that he transfer to another subject and Cordelia was standing in front of Xander in the library, glaring at him and tapping one of her feet.

"Okay, okay, I'll tell them."

"And me. I saw it and I still don't know what's going on."

"Tell us what?" Buffy asked as she and Willow came in. Giles came out of his office, his nose in a book and looked up curiously.

Xander took a deep breath. "You might as well all sit." He said, indicating the chairs around the table.

They all took their usual positions and turned their attention to him.

"Everybody here remember Halloween?"

They all chuckled and gave him an affirmative.

"Anyone here have anything left over from Halloween?" Xander tapped the side of his head with one finger. "Because I do."

Giles shifted in his seat. "I don't think I ever found out what you went as."

Buffy smirked. "A vampire hunter."

"Oh, well, that could actually…"

Xander interrupted "A vampire hunter, who was half vampire himself."

The library was for once truly silent.

Buffy shook her head. "That does not make any sense, how could he be half."

"Well, D's daddy met D's mommy and they fell in love, even though D's daddy was a vicious vampire and D's mommy was human."

Giles shook his head. "Vampires can't have children, not with humans or anyone else for that matter. And even if they could, why would it matter, the spell was broken."

"The breaking of it may have caused a rather odd backlash (like a ticked off god) and vampires here can't, but according to a fairly reliable source, D was from another reality."

"Reliable source, do you mean Ethan?"

Xander shook his head. "No. He might know what he's talking about, but I wouldn't trust him to be reliable." He looked down at his left hand. "Well?

Everyone in the room other than Xander started when a hoarse voice answered "Okay."

Xander looked up at everyone and then back down at his hands. "You see, the guy I went as was really odd. Not only was he a half vampire who hunts vampires but he also had a fellow traveller at his… well, side." Xander opened his left hand in a yield position. Everyone sat back in their chairs, eyes wide as they stared at a little face in the palm of Xander's hand. It looked out and gave them a tentative smile.

"Err. Hi?" It said cautiously, looking like it was waiting for people to start screaming.

They obliged.

* * *

In the space of ten minutes, much to Xander and Left Hand's discomfort, Buffy had armed herself with a sword and an axe. Giles had already skimmed two books looking for a way to undo demonic appendage possession. Cordelia had said ewww forty-seven times and Willow was babbling so fast that even Xander couldn't understand her.

A piercing whistle cut through the noise and all of them stopped what they were doing to look at Xander, who was looking at Left Hand with a pained expression on his face. That whistle and his hearing had not been a good combination.

"Guys, could you stop freaking for a moment," Xander asked once he'd shaken the ringing out of his head. "Buffy, all of my bits are staying on my body, thanks very much. Giles, the problem is larger than just a possession. Cordelia…, as you were. Wills, breathe."

"But Xander…"

"Uh uh, air first, talk after."

She glowered at him but took a couple of deep breathes, letting them out slowly.

"Okay guys, here's the skinny. I still possess most of the physical and mental aspects of the guy I dressed as that night, possibly because the character I had become broke the spell in a manner that the focus of said spell did not appreciate.

The library became so quiet; one could have heard dust settle.

"Y… You mean you're actually a half vampire? As well as having… that." Giles said, indicating the face in Xander's left hand. The face made a rude noise at being referred to as 'that'.

Xander swallowed his throat suddenly dry. "Yeah," he said, nodding.

"Oh, dear."

Everyone, including Xander and Left Hand winced to hear Giles say those two words.

* * *

Xander dragged himself home, exhausted. It had been a long night. Giles and Willow had hit the books and the computer with unexpected vigour. Even Buffy and Cordelia had pitched in for the first couple of hours. When nothing satisfactory came of that Giles and Willow and Buffy and occasionally Cordelia grilled him about everything he had experience that night. That included everything that had happened after, the strangest questions being things like bed times, toothpaste brand, and current diet. If it had the slightest impact on him physically or mentally, it was tallied onto a list whose purpose Xander could only guess.

Giles even questioned Left Hand, whose answers dripped with sarcasm as he was still obviously annoyed with having been referred to as 'that.' Still, the little carbuncle had answered everything truthfully, as far as Xander knew.

Xander crawled thankfully into bed that night and passed out asleep almost as soon as he had lain down. His sleep was serene, because despite all the freakage, it appeared he still had his friends.

* * *

Author's Note: Buffy never struck me as being very good at doing the power radar thing (honing, according to Giles) that a slayer is supposed to have access to. It always seemed as if she put things together more through her own intuition, at least in the early years. This is why I have Kendra noticing power leakage from Xander when Buffy doesn't.

As for Spike and Dru… I admit, I have plans for them to be brought back, although if it does happen it won't be for some time yet.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Still not mine? Humph!

A Hunter's Tale or How Did We Get from Here to There

By Colleen

Chapter 4

_Trouble is part of your life, and if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you enough chance to love you enough. ~Dinah Shore_

Over the next couple of weeks, Xander answered more questions, did some physical tests and stood still for two rituals that Giles cast in an attempt to cancel out the Halloween spell. Attempts that, sadly, fizzled out and did nothing.

At the start of all of this, Buffy and Willow were obviously uncomfortable with him. Thankfully, they loosened up as the days went by, as the only thing that seemed to have changed about him, was a tendency to get into quip wars with Left Hand, and this, when one thought about it, wasn't much of a change.

Strangely, Cordelia didn't treat him any differently at all, which didn't make their interactions good, but it did continue the status quo.

By the end of two weeks, everyone had become relaxed enough about the situation that he, Willow and Buffy had gone to a movie together. Willow and he had even started kibitzing like they always had as the three of them walked back to Buffy's place. Buffy herself was comfortably zoned out as her two friends argued playfully.

She shook herself out of it as they reached her house and she pulled out her key to open the front door. The front door that swung open when she started to insert said key. All three of them sobered immediately and stared at the entrance, concerned

"You guys wait here a second."

Xander closed his eyes and listened as Buffy moved through the house. The sound of glass breaking in the kitchen and Joyce Summer's voice raised in denial caused him to bolt into the house, with Willow tight on his heels.

They piled up to a stop behind Buffy, who was standing in the entrance to the kitchen, looking at her mother and the guy she was standing very close to.

"Uh, hi, Mrs. Summers and guy we don't know," Xander said, giving them a wave. Buffy's mom was cute when she blushed.

"Um, this is Ted. Ted, this is my daughter Buffy and her friends, Xander and Willow."

"Well hey there guys, come on in. Hope you can stay for dinner, 'cause I'm making mini pizzas."

Buffy, Xander and Willow looked at each other and then shrugged before joining Ted and Buffy's mom in the kitchen.

xxxxxxxx

While Buffy grilled her mom about her possible new boyfriend and where she had met him and how long they had been going out and what his social security number was, okay, not that, but if she could have, she would have. Anyway, while she was doing that, Xander looked over the ingredients Ted had out for the pizzas.

He had been noticing over the last couple of weeks, that he wasn't eating as much as he normally did. At least, not where his beloved junk food was concerned. He still ate normal food, but his meals were much more protein based now than they had been in the past. Steak was great, hamburgers were often eaten without the bun and he'd started to buy sushi, a meal that had always been something he could take or leave.

On a green vegetable note, spinach salads had also become a mainstay of his diet. A fact he intended to take to his grave.

Sadly Twinkies, Ho-Ho's and the like didn't appeal much and even when he tried to eat them, they sat like so much lead in his stomach. As far as liquids went, soda and milk were just plain bad. Fruit juice wasn't out of the question, but coffee, tea and plain water seemed to be the better choices.

Pizza, with the cheese and the sliced meats, might be all right.

"Here," Ted said, sliding the pizza sauce over to him. "Why don't you sauce one of those puppies up and we'll see what else we can put on it for you."

Xander breathed in the aroma of the sauce and felt the air in his lungs freeze. With a panicked look on his face, he backed away from where the pizzas were being put together, until he was as far away as the room allowed him to get.

He started to cough uncontrollably. Willow had a brief moment of panic, before she grabbed a glass out of one of the kitchen cabinets and filled it with water, bringing it over to him.

By this time, he was only wheezing and he took the glass of water with a nod of thanks, drinking a few sips of it.

"Are you alright Xander?" Mrs. Summers asked. Xander looked over at her to see both her and Buffy looking at him with concern. Ted stood further behind them, a slight frown on his face.

"I'm fine Mrs. S," Xander croaked out, his voice hoarse from the coughing. "I just forgot that I have an allergic reaction to a basic pizza ingredient."

Joyce gave him a startled look. A teenager unable to eat pizza, it was almost unheard of.

Buffy looked at the ingredients and back to Xander. "What could you be allergic to…oh, oh right, I forgot."

"Makes two of us," Xander said. "Please, don't let me stop you from making supper. I'll be fine over here and besides, I wasn't really hungry."

"Are you sure Xander? If it's really that bad maybe you shouldn't be in the room with it."

He shook his head. "It's fine, just so long as I don't go getting that close to it again."

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Xander would have felt more envious of Willow and Mrs. Summers obvious enjoyment of the pizzas, if he wasn't feeling slightly nauseous at the very thought of eating one. Garlic, blah. Buffy also didn't seem too thrilled with the thought of them as she turned down all of Ted's entreaties to try one.

It was obvious that Buffy wasn't very comfortable with the idea of her mom dating, although Ted seemed to be a nice guy. Well, maybe a little too nice, but he was probably trying hard to make a good impression on Buffy.

To bad for him it wasn't really working.

Xander had to chuckle over it. When he did, he felt his left hand twitch and he knew it really wanted to ask him what was so funny. For once, he seemed to know better than to do so in front of a stranger and Buffy's mom.

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"If you say one more word, things will become dire." Buffy said as she, Willow and Xander walked down the hall at school.

"Aw, come on Slayer, you could have at least tasted one of them. They smelled great, even if the guy I'm attached to here keeps turning green at the very thought of them."

"They really were good." Willow said.

"Yeah, rub it in why don't you," Xander grumped.

"Fine, okay, so he can cook, that doesn't really tell me anything about him." Buffy said, ignoring Xander's whining.

"You don't like him?" Willow asked, surprised.

"I don't know him. I, I mean, so far all I see is someone who apparently has a good job, seems nice and polite and my mother really likes him."

"What kind of monster is he?"

Both Willow and Buffy stopped for a moment to look at Xander. "Did we just get that in stereo?" Buffy asked him.

Xander frowned down at his hand. "Get your own quips."

Left hand snorted back at him.

They arrived at a vending machine in the student lounge area and Xander looked over the selection, before slumping slightly and deciding not to bother.

"You know Slayer, if this Ted guy is making you this uncomfortable, then why don't you just give into the inevitable and start checking into him. Besides, with your luck the guy's probably some kind of demon, or worse, a Shriner.

"Or a demon Shriner."

Xander and Buffy looked at Willow, who shrugged.

"Either way, he might be a guy with a fez…" Left Hand continued.

"Yeah," Xander said, always willing to run with a joke. "He might be… Ted!"

"Well of course he's Ted." Buffy said, ready to get wound up on the subject again.

"Yes Ted, Ted who's here." Xander said, stopping her before she could get going.

"Hello kids."

Ted, it turned out, was at the school updating their software. Since he was there, he also passed on some computer discs he'd promised Willow and invited the three of them to Miniature golf and a picnic on Saturday. He even promised to have something other than mini pizzas there for Xander to eat.

Buffy tried to lame excuse her way out of the outing, but Xander jumped in and practically accepted for her.

After Ted left, she whapped Xander on the shoulder.

"Ow, what was that for." He asked, rubbing at it.

"Why did you go and say yes?" She asked, fuming.

"Buffy, if you're going to find out that this guy's not right for your mom, then you're going to have to hang out with him, even if it's just to keep an eye on him."

She growled at him. "I hate logic."

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Saturday rolled around and the five of them picnicked in the park adjacent to the mini-golf course. Willow and Joyce once again raved about Ted's cooking. Xander found himself a bit depressed about it. All this food just waiting to be eaten and he couldn't handle more than about a fourth of what he'd normally plough through. On top of that, his sense of taste must have gone a little wonky. He found that some of the food had an odd, bitter aftertaste to it. One that no one else seemed to be noticing.

Still, it was a lovely day and he wouldn't let a little thing like that spoil it, not sir. He shook his head. Where did that come from?

Buffy, as par for the course, hadn't eaten anything. At the rate she was going, Ted wouldn't have to win Buffy over. All he would have to do was hang around long enough doing the cooking and Buffy would push herself out of the picture by starving to death.

After food, they headed for mini-golf fun. Left Hand had heard of golf, of course, but not miniature golf. He had asked Xander for clarification of the sport, but apparently, Xander's explanation left something to be desired. He hadn't understood it until they got there. He took one look at the place and started to laugh uncontrollably. Xander hunched over and turned away from the group, trying to give Mrs. Summers and Ted the impression that he was the one doing the laughing. It was times like these that he could understand why D would shut the parasite up with a painful squeeze of his fist.

"What's tickling your funny bone so hard there son?" Ted asked him.

Left Hand's laugher had faded off to a mild snicker when Xander turned around, wiping his eyes as if his laugher had driven him to tears. "Sorry, I just find little windmills to be hilarious." He said, indicating the one that was in sight a couple of holes over.

"Well, it's nice to know that kids today can still enjoy the simple things." Ted said.

Xander mentally blinked. Maybe Buffy was right about this guy; nobody should be this upbeat about everything, especially when what he'd just done with the laughing was down right odd.

Speaking of which, Xander let the group get a little ahead of him before he asked Left Hand a question.

"What the hell was that about?"

The parasite snickered again. "Sorry," He said quietly, "It's just that as soon as I saw this place, I had a mental image of D playing a round here, in full armour and cape."

Xander thought about it for a moment and had to snicker as well at the image it invoked.

"Ahem. "

Startled he looked behind himself at the group that was waiting to play next.

"Ah, sorry." He dropped his ball and played his shot, quickly catching up to Buffy and the rest of them.

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At the castle, Buffy and Ted disappeared to the other side of the hole for a moment. When the rest of the group caught up with them, Xander had to wonder if something had happened. Buffy looked shocked, however Ted seemed his usual self. He was jovial and offered them cookies for dessert.

Xander bit into one gave a perfunctory 'Mmmm.' However, Joyce and Willow seemed transported to heaven by the taste. Obviously, his screwed up taste buds had struck again. To him, they had that same bitter aftertaste as the picnic foods, only more so.

He looked around the course for a bit, trying to find a place he could get rid of the rest of the cookie. An almost polite little cough came from his left hand and he put the rest of it into that hand. It disappeared with a quiet chew and gulp, that was followed by a surprised sounding, "what the?"

Briefly, Xander wondered what the problem was, but decided to find out after the game.

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When Xander got home, he dropped the extra cookies that Ted had given all of them onto the kitchen counter, figuring his parents would eat them.

"Ah, kid, I know you're not all that fond of the 'rents, but you might not want to leave those out where they can get at them."

"Well, I don't want to eat them." Xander said, looking at them sadly.

"Don't blame you; tranquilizers and chocolate don't really go all that well together."

"What?"

"Yeah, not sure what it is exactly, but it would make the most uptight man on the planet melt into a gooey puddle of mellow. Noticed it as soon as I ate that bit of cookie, although it took a while for a full analysis. Given the way everyone was acting, I suspect there was some of it in the picnic as well."

"Well that might explain the bitterness I tasted, as well as the bright sunny day attitude. Damn, what the hell is this guy up to?"

"Don't know, but I don't think it's the usual thing your group deals with.

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"Ha!" Buffy exclaimed the next morning after he had told her and Willow about the cookies. "I told you there was something wrong with this guy. Even more wrong than him threatening to slap me yesterday."

The air around them seemed to chill by several degrees and Xander looked at her with a face that appeared carved from marble. "He threatened you yesterday?"

The two girls shivered. "Xander, I can take care of myself, so chill… or unchill as the case seems to be."

Xander took a deep breath and tried to shake off the sudden moodiness.

"That's the problem with tranqs and a dhampir's constitution." The gravely voice of his left hand said. "For as mellow as you were yesterday, you're probably going to end up twice as uptight today."

Xander sighed. "Great."

"Okay," Willow said. "We know he's doing bad, but what do we do about it?"

"We stop him. Willow, I need you to find out everything you can about him, preferably by tonight. Xander, once Willow gets you an address, can you check out where he lives? Xander nodded. "While you two are doing that I'm going to spend the day following him…err, just as soon as you find out where he works. You can do that, right?" She asked Willow.

"Of course, but why do you need the rest by tonight?" Willow asked.

"Cause mom and I are having dinner with the creep and surprise, surprise, he's cooking. I would really rather he didn't get the chance to drug her any more than he already has."

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Willow set computer searches on Ted, but managed to find out where he worked simply by claiming to have problems with her laptop and asking the Guidance office who had done their work a few days before. They passed on Ted's business card and Buffy left soon after to shadow Ted at work.

Xander chose a nice sword and an axe that he could fit into a duffle bag and after a bit of thought he added a crowbar for good measure. They had already shanghaied Cordelia into providing transportation over to Ted's place, which was where they would go next, just as soon as Willow tracked down his address.

It took most of the afternoon, but Willow did better than that, digging up personal records and marriage licences as well as the address.

Xander checked his watch. "If we head over to Ted's place we should get there just as he's leaving for Buffy's. We do a quick check, collect anything incriminating, like hopefully the drugs he's been using in his food, and then we go over to Buffy's place and show Joyce…err, Buffy's mom, just what a creep her boyfriend is. Sound good? And no Cordelia, your answer will not count."

The cheerleader glared at him for a moment. "People who want rides shouldn't throw insults."

"Enough with the fighting you two." Left Hand said. "Just give into the hormones and start making out already."

The two of them looked at each other in horror. "Not." Xander said. "Going to happen." Cordelia continued. "Ever." Xander finished.

Willow, who looked just as horrified at the thought as the two of them did, added her own ending. "Amen."

Giles, who had been working around them for the last hour looked at the library clock. "As riveting as this all is, shouldn't you be going if you're going to implement this plan of yours."

They all looked at the clock and quickly gathered their supplies before heading out to Cordelia's car.

Giles looked around the now empty library. "Finally, some quiet." He shook his head. "For a library that doesn't get used much by the student body, it's always far too loud in here."

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Team Scooby arrived at Ted's place just as the computer salesman was leaving. After trying all the windows and doors, they finally gave into the inevitable. Xander used the crowbar he'd brought to force an entrance to Ted's workshop. Once they were in, Cordelia and he spread out to search the place while Willow checked over the personal papers they'd dug up on Ted.

Turned out he'd been married four times, going all the way back to 1957, which should have been impossible.

Just like this place was. Xander was definitely confused. Ted always struck him as a neat freak, yet this place was dusty, messy and generally unused looking. He couldn't see Ted working here, much less kicking back with a beer after a hard day at work.

Cordelia came back from the area she was checking and said pretty much the same thing that he'd already been thinking, plus one more thing.

"And that rug totally doesn't go with the rest of the décor."

Xander could have hit himself. His ears had been telling him that there was an empty space under the floor and he'd completely ignored it. The three of them grabbed the rug and pulled it aside, revealing a trap door set into the floor.

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Now this space seemed a little more like somewhere you could kick back with a beer, if Elvis had just recorded his first song. The fifties lived again in a basement in Sunnydale. Well, is shouldn't really be surprising, the seventies lived in a lot of them in this town as well.

"Xander, light." Cordelia said, sounding a little nervous.

"Oh, right, sorry." He shook his head; he hadn't even noticed that it was dark in here. He quickly found the light switch and flipped it. As soon as he did a record player dropped a disc and started to play 50's lounge music.

The three of them began to look around. It didn't take long for Xander to decide the best thing to check out was the closet.

What he saw in there went into his current top five worse things he'd ever seen. He slammed the door shut and hustled the girls out, telling them that he'd found Ted's first four wives as he helped them up the ladder and out of the psycho time capsule.

"Buffy's place, now. I'm not leaving those two alone with… whatever the hell he is."

Pale, the two girls nodded before the three of them piled into Cordelia's car and peeled out of there towards Buffy's place.

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Buffy glared at Ted as he stood in her room, holding her diary. The guys were late, she hadn't been able to stop her mom from eating Ted's cooking and now he was going through her things.

It was almost a relief when he hit her, because she was more than happy enough to return the favour. They exchanged blows until Buffy's mom appeared. Then, over her cries for her daughter to stop, Buffy executed a punch and a kick that sent Ted falling down the stairs, to land at the bottom with a noise that sounded like his neck breaking. Joyce was halfway down the stairs trying to get to him when the front door opened and Xander, Willow and Cordelia piled in. She was about to tell them to phone for an ambulance when she noticed Xander hefting an axe up in his hands.

Time slowed down to a crawl as she watched him bring the blade of it down on Ted's neck, severing his head from his body.

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Buffy could have sworn she'd only had time to blink, before she found herself having gone from the top of the stairs, to her mom's bedroom. Her mom locked the door and then backed away from it.

"Oh, my God, oh my God."

"Mom?"

"Phone, we need the phone." Her mom said as she headed over to the one next to her bed.

Buffy got there first and picked up the entire telephone, holding it away from her mother.

"Buffy!"

"Mom, look, I don't know what's going on, but Xander wouldn't have done something like…." She swallowed and blinked, realizing just how emotional the last few days had been for her. "Like that without a really good reason."

Buffy was fairly certain that her mom was about to start yelling, when a tentative knock came at the bedroom door. "Buffy, Mrs. Summers?" Willow's voice sounded uncertain on the other side of the door.

"Oh, my God, the girls." Joyce ran over to the door. "Willow, where's Xander?"

"He's coming up the stairs, heeee…" Willow's sentence skittered off wildly as Joyce opened the door and pulled the two girls into the room, locking it again once they were in.

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To say that Willow and Cordelia were surprised that Xander went and beheaded Ted would be an understatement. However, they had both been in the Scooby game long enough to know that a body ought to bleed. Xander used his foot to kick over Ted's head, showing the wiring that had once connected it to his body.

"He's a robot!" Cordelia said, truly shocked. "Just when I thought I had this place figured out."

Willow looked like she could happily start taking Ted robot apart right there, to find out how he worked. However, Xander was hoping to head off a bigger problem. He nodded up the stairs. "Can you two go run interference?"

They could hear Buffy's mom freaking out over their heads and they nodded before heading up to see what they could do about it.

Xander picked up Ted's head, looked down into the wiring and frowned. "Damn, this thing is some piece of work." Left Hand said, as it looked it over from a slightly different angle.

"How come I didn't notice? I tend to filter it out, but I can hear people's hearts and lungs working. Why didn't I notice his not working?" He put the head down and gave a sigh. He looked around for a moment, then reached over and locked the front door before heading upstairs himself. While it was unlikely that anyone would just walk in, there was no reason to risk it, not with the way their luck usually ran.

"You actually didn't realize he wasn't human until after you cut his head off, did you?" Left Hand asked him, and then laughed. "Every now and then you really do remind me of D." Xander said nothing, although his right hand tightened around the axe handle until his knuckles turned white. The little, whatever he was, in Xander's hand decided not the press the issue at this moment and went back to taking about the robot.

"We won't be able to tell until we look him over a little better, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that whoever made him gave him a system that would imitate a heart beat and breathing. It wasn't unusual for them to be made like that in my time. The system would no doubt be a little too regular, but you would probably have had to be around him a lot more, before you would have noticed. Besides, you're still fairly new at this; I'm surprised you're actually able to filter most of that noise out."

Xander shrugged. "It seems to be instinctual." They arrived at the door to Joyce's bedroom, where they could both hear Mrs. Summers yelling at Buffy, for having gone and pulled the phone out from the wall.

"Looks like damage control isn't working too well, kid."

Xander sighed, and then knocked on the door. The room inside got very quiet.

"Xander?" Buffy's voice, slightly muffled by the door.

"Hey, do you guys think you could come out, so we can show your mom what's really going on and so she doesn't think I'm an axe murderer?"

"Uh."

"Look Buffy, I know you don't want her to know about this stuff, but it's going to get her killed if she doesn't even know when she needs to duck."

"Buffy, don't…" Not surprisingly, that came from Buffy's mom.

Buffy opened the door, her mother stood behind her brandishing the disconnected phone in her hands.

Buffy growled at him. "I told you, I hate logic."

Xander smiled at her and handed her the axe, the movement causing Mrs. Summers to raise the phone into an offensive position and then lower it again once Buffy had taken the weapon.

"Alright then," Joyce said, looking from her daughter to Xander. "Show me what's really going on."

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Joyce would have liked to have pulled the weapon out of Buffy's hands, but realized that the distraction of fighting over it might give Xander a chance to do… something. Besides, the important thing was to get downstairs and get to a phone. She could humour the crazed teen for the few minutes that would take.

Xander was in front, with Buffy right behind him. Joyce, Cordelia, and Willow following. There was a bit of a pile up as Xander stopped short, halfway down the stairs. Buffy skilfully manoeuvred the axe out of way, narrowly avoiding cutting into Xander's back.

Buffy peered over Xander's shoulder to see why he had stopped. She blinked as she realized what was missing from the bottom of the stairs. "Xander, why did you move Ted's body?"

He looked around. "I didn't."

"Oh."

"Maybe we should head back up." Xander said.

Joyce was ready to push pass the two teens and get to a phone to end this nonsense, when a voice came from behind them.

"Well, don't change direction on my account."

They all turned to look up the stairs as Ted came out of Buffy's bedroom and stepped to the top of the stairs. This wouldn't have been all that weird, except for the fact that Ted was carrying his head under his left arm while holding a sword in his right hand. Xander glanced down the stairs and noticed the almost empty duffle bag that he had used to carry the axe, crowbar and sadly, the sword that Ted was now holding.

"Ted?" Joyce said, before her knees attempted to fold up under her. Buffy managed to catch her one handed and hoisted her back up into a standing position.

"Everyone downstairs, now!"

Xander jumped the rest of the distance to the ground and ripped open the duffle bag, mentally gripping that robot Ted had actually been tidy enough that he had zipped it shut after retrieving the sword. Thankfully, he hadn't gotten rid of the crowbar at the same time and Xander pulled it out, kicking the now torn bag to the side. Buffy come down the stairs a little slower, though only because she was helping to keep her mom upright. Willow and Cordelia scrambled down and took over as props for Buffy's dazed mother.

Ted started down the stairs. "Now that really wasn't very nice of you, and look, you've upset your mother. Still, it will be alright, just as soon as you see the house."

"The house?" Joyce asked, weakly.

"Yep, I've decorated it just the way you like it, spared no expense." The sound of wires crossing in a way they probably shouldn't came from inside the body part of Ted and it jerked, almost stumbling down the last couple of stairs. "Hmm, going to have to fix that. Damn inconvenient during an intimate moment."

All of them looked sick at the very thought of Ted being intimate, Xander especially, as he'd seen the bodies of Ted's past wives.

"I'm sure you'll love the furniture. I spent a lot of time getting the room just right. We'll be very happy together, without any lying, cheating brats to get in the way." His head finished the last of that line with a glare towards Buffy.

Mrs. Summers' legs firmed up under her and she reached over and grabbed onto the crowbar that Xander was holding. He looked at her, startled, until he saw the pure fury in her eyes. He let go and stepped back a little, leaving the field to the two Summers women.

Buffy swung high with the axe, which Ted blocked with the sword. At the same time, Joyce swung low with the crowbar, hooking him and taking his legs out from the back. Ted crashed to the ground. His head popped out from under his arm and rolled a couple of times before Joyce stopped it with her foot.

"I have to bring you home Joyce, just like I always do." The head said up at her. "Husband and wives are forever."

"Forever this." She said, before ramming the end of the crowbar into Ted's eye and halfway into whatever it was that passed for his brain. At the same time, Buffy brought the axe down on the centre of Ted's chest, finally shorting out the system that was keeping him running.

Joyce looked around at the mess and then up at the teenagers. "Okay, now you can explain what's really going on."

Dead silence filled the house, as each of them tried to figure out just where to start.

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The fights that night between Buffy and her Mom and the next day between her and Giles were legendary. Xander, Willow and Cordelia stayed out of the way, although they stepped in once or twice to stop the participants from saying something they'd regret. Otherwise, the three teens kept their heads down and spent the time disposing of Ted and coming up with a way to anonymously inform the police about the bodies in the robot's basement rec room.

In the end, they went back to Ted's place. Wearing gloves, they wiped down anything they might have touched the first time they had been there. Once that was done, they left the door they had originally broken into the house through open, pulled the rug back, opened the trap door, turned the lights on and even opened the door to the small room that held the bodies of Ted's ex-wives. They called the police from the pay phone at a nearby convenience store. Left Hand did the talking, reporting the sounds of glass breaking and having seen someone running from Ted's place. Naturally, they hung up without leaving a name.

With everything laid out for them, even the Sunnydale PD shouldn't be able to screw up finding the bodies, they hoped.

The next evening the fight between Mother and Daughter was still going on, causing Giles to take over patrol for the night. Xander wasn't sure what happened during that patrol, but it must have been good. The next morning Giles and Miss Calendar had made up to the point that the teenagers caught the two of them kissing in the library the next morning, much to Buffy's disgust. She'd had more than enough of the adults in her life getting smoochies, but at least she didn't distrust Ms Calendar the way she had Ted.

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Joyce looked around her art gallery and rubbed at the space between her eyes. Not surprisingly, she'd had a headache for the last few days. A combination of finding out everything about Buffy, as well as going through withdrawal from Ted's drugged cooking, no doubt. It didn't help that she would also be going on a vampire hunt that evening with Buffy and her 'Watcher'. She was still unhappy about the librarian's part in Buffy's other life and she really didn't want to have to believe in the existence of vampires. The robot had been bad enough, thank you very much.

She looked up as the bell on her shop door went off and she wasn't exactly surprised to see two uniformed police officers enter with a woman. There had always been a good chance that the police might trace Ted to her.

"Ms. Summers?" The woman asked.

"Yes?"

"I'm Detective Winslow, I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions?"

"Certainly." Joyce said, indicating that the detective should sit in one of the chairs in the viewing area. Joyce took the other and appeared to give the woman her full attention, even while her mind raced.

The detective pulled out a photo. "Do you know this man?"

Joyce looked at it. Unsurprisingly it was a picture of Ted.

"Yes, of course. That's Ted Buchanan. Has something happened to him?"

"What was your relationship with him?" The detective asked, ignoring Joyce's question.

"We were dating for awhile."

"Dating, not engaged?"

Joyce looked at her, surprised. "No, we hadn't known each other that long. As it was, we broke up a few days ago."

"May I ask why?"

Joyce grimaced. "Actually, he didn't get along with my daughter." She looked at the detective, unsure she should say anything more.

"It was more than just that, wasn't it Mrs. Summers?" The detective looked like she'd finally found a thread she could pull on.

Joyce took a deep breath and hoped that this wouldn't start them looking in places they shouldn't. "He threatened her, physically. I probably shouldn't say this to a police detective, but I would kill anyone who went after my little girl. As far as dating goes, he wasn't ever going to so much as touch me or her again."

The detective nodded and handed her a card. "If you see him, call me. Don't try to approach him, just call."

"Detective, what's going on?"

"I'm unable to say. Just, make sure that you lock your doors and if you have a gun in the house, keep it with you." The detective sighed as she took in Mrs. Summers' terror-stricken face. "Mr Buchanan is a dangerous man, be glad you broke up with him when you did. We honestly believe he's left town, so you should be safe, but if you do see him, call me."

"Of course." She saw the detective and officers out and locked the door behind them, sagging against it for a moment. Then she straightened up and started to walk to the back of the gallery. She was slightly shaken, but smiling just the same. "And my parents said I'd never have any use for drama class."


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Vampire Hunter D belong to their perspective owners. I am not one of them. I'm just borrowing them for entertainment purposes and no money shall be made from this entertainment.

A Hunter's Tale or How Did We Get from Here to There

By Colleen

Chapter 5

_They had this look in their eyes-totally cold. Animal. I think they were Young Republicans. ~Andy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, film_

A few weeks later and Joyce already had a full introduction to the Hellmouth. Watching her daughter pummel and dust a couple of vampires one night had been a revelation, both to how dangerous the town she'd stupidly decided to move them to was and how skilled Buffy actually was at being the Slayer.

She didn't want to believe that it was some sort of divine calling. Watching her, she knew that that was exactly what it was. Didn't mean she wouldn't mind seeing Buffy try not being the Slayer. However, when a teenage girl could tie a crowbar into a knot, it was difficult to tell her she should make an effort to be weak.

Still, she wasn't one to give up without a fight. To that end, she had scheduled as many mother/daughter outings as she could manage during the last few weeks.

Today was shopping, something they could both agree to enjoy, even if they didn't agree on what to buy. Case in point, Buffy was trying to talk her into buying her an outfit that Joyce would burn before she let Buffy leave the house wearing.

With the stores closing, Joyce went to run a few last minute errands, while sending Buffy over to the tailors to pick up her dress. That done, they would both meet at the food court.

Buffy's mom dropped off an order at the printers, then headed over to the food court and ordered their supper. Buffy arrived, but it was late and without the dress.

"Let me guess, you were distracted by a boy."

Buffy cringed. "Technically."

"Buffy…" She said, shaking her head before she took a good look at her daughter and their own weird little reality seeped back in. "You're kidding me, here?"

Buffy shrugged. "It's not all graveyards and abandoned warehouses. Some vampires actually shop."

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The next day after teen health class, Willow and Xander walked into the library. Buffy was already there, going through the card catalogue. Apparently, she had missed the class with them due to vampire issues.

Since she hadn't been there, the teacher had passed her project over to Willow so she could pass it on to Buffy. Getting an egg had been something of a surprise. That it was supposed to be a baby was even more of one.

When she found out she was supposed to look after it, she nearly freaked. She firmly believed that she couldn't take care of things. Worse yet, she found out she hadn't been partnered up, meaning she was raising that egg as a single parent. The parallel to her mother's life was far too uncomfortable.

The next morning her mother would find the situation to be hilarious.

For now though, Giles managed to come up with information about vampire Buffy had had an altercation with the night before. He was one of the Gorch brothers. Lyle and Tector Gorch were both dangerous, but as far as thinking power went, they were nowhere close to what Spike and Drucilla had been. Still, they weren't pushovers, so Buffy was going to go out hunting that night with Angel, just for safety.

Yeah, right. Hunting required actually not kissing long enough to find something to stake.

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Left Hand had been mulling the situation over for some time now and tonight seemed as good a time to discuss it as any. "Hey, kid?"

Yeah?" Xander answered, as he looked at his egg child and debated the merits of hard-boiling it.

"I was thinking…" He petered off as he realized that Xander wasn't really paying attention. "Here, give me that."

Xander shrugged and passed the egg over to his left hand, which promptly swallowed it.

"Hey!"

"Relax, it's safe, I'm just holding it in stasis inside of me, I can pull it back out anytime I want, see." The egg reappeared in his hand briefly, before being swallowed once more.

"Cool, weird, but cool."

"So now that I can have your full attention, I was thinking that we need to get you trained up."

Xander shook his head. "Vampire slaying is Buffy's thing, I want to help, but I don't want to get in the way."

"You wouldn't be getting in the way, you'd be… Wait, if vampires are Buffy's thing that makes computers Willow's thing. You're actually trying to avoid knowing anything that could show those two up."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Wow. That would actually be sweet of you, if it wasn't putting the two of them in danger."

"What?"

"Think about it, as you are now you can help, some. You're stronger and faster and heal better than you ever did before, but if you knew more then you could do more than just help. You could truly keep them safe." Left Hand frowned at Xander as the teen shook his head. "If it's really important to you that you don't show the two of them up you could do your work from the shadows, so they never have to know."

Xander stopped shaking his head, thought about it for a moment, and then shook his head no again.

"Trust me kid, there is more than enough evil in this town for all of you."

Well, Xander had to admit that was true. "I don't know." Xander said his voice full of uncertainty.

Left Hand sighed. "Just think about it, seriously."

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Xander's sleep that night had simply been crap. Mostly because he couldn't get his brain to turn off and stop going over what Left Hand had said. This much thought didn't particularly feel good for his soul, but it did bring him to realize his reluctance to improve his abilities wasn't just about avoiding stepping on Buffy and Willow's toes.

As it was, there were several reasons. Like the fact that he'd have to seriously (and carefully) start looking through D's memories. Memories that he was already annoyed with, as they tended to wander uninvited through his mind every now and again. He would also increase the power he currently had with his knowledge, and he was already afraid of the power he had. But the number one reason? He would have to finally admit that this thing with him wasn't going to get fixed.

A thought that had only partially occurred to him previously gave him a nudge. When he physically hit the age that would increase his powers to his full adult capability, if he didn't know how to control them, they could swallow him whole. It would leave nothing but crazy, bloodthirsty, super powered him in charge.

Xander shuddered and had to admit that Left Hand was right. If he wanted to be a solution and not a problem, then he was going to have to start making something of his potential.

For some reason this made him suddenly think of the egg project. He'd been right early when he'd said it was unimportant. The staff at school were trying to teach responsibility when some of their students were already almost crushed under it.

Sadly, it was time for him to take up some of his… tomorrow. And with that decision made, he finally fell asleep.

The next morning he was feeling a little tired, but still mostly chipper. The girls however looked like they'd barely been able to drag themselves out of bed. He started to help Giles with the shelving while they just sort of… slumped there.

He shrugged. Maybe they were taking the parenting gig a little too seriously.

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After school Xander headed back into the library. As usual, it appeared to be empty, although he could hear Giles puttering around in his office in the back.

"You've thought about what we talked about?" Left hand asked.

Xander nodded. "Yeah, and you are right, it's time I actually did something with what I've become." He walked into the book cage and opened the weapon's cabinet inside.

"What should I start with?"

"Go with the basics kid. The quarterstaff is the best place to start. Once you're comfortable with it we can see about making up a few of those wooden needles that D likes to use. They'll be your best weapon for long range, and they're easier to hide than a crossbow."

Xander nodded and picked up a staff before heading over to a clear spot in the library to work.

"Okay kid, what you want to do is carefully peel open the part of D's memories that cover staff training. You just want that part. If you go for everything, you'll probably be overwhelmed, just like in French class. Over the years, D trained in the staff, the sword, archery, horsemanship, guns, fisticuffs and the martial arts. And that's just some of the physical stuff."

Xander started to poke at D's memories. "It's not like pulling a book off a shelf."

"Could be, if you want to set the memories up that way. However, that will take some training as well. Of the mental persuasion."

"Okay, I think I've got it." Xander said. "Carefully opening… His body seized in place, his two handed grip on the staff so tight that he actually snapped the thing in half.

"Kid!"

He dropped the pieces of the staff and his eyes rolled up into his head before he passed out, slumping to the floor unconscious.

"Okay…" Left Hand mused. "That went well."

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A couple of minutes later Giles came out of the office to find Xander on the floor.

"Dear Lord." He moved over to the boy and gave his shoulder a shake. "Xander?"

"Careful." A gravel pitted voice said, causing Giles to start.

"What happened to him?"

Even though Giles couldn't see it at the moment, Left Hand's little face scrunched up in a grimace. "Information overload. We went fishing in his head for some of the Halloween memories and he got too much at once."

Xander groaned and shifted.

"Xander, are you all right?" Giles asked as he helped the teen sit up. Xander looked around confused, then blinked and focused on Giles.

"I know kung-fu."

"What?"

Xander shook his head, and regretted it almost immediately. He groaned again. "Nothing."

"Come on." Giles said, as he pulled Xander to his feet long enough to get him to a chair at the reading table. Xander sat down and then dropped his head to the tabletop's surface.

"Owwie."

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That night Buffy's egg hatched and tried to attack her. Buffy of course, killed it, and then phoned Willow to see if she was safe. Willow told her there was nothing odd about her egg, but she would phone and warn Xander, just in case. Her mom came in after that. She wasn't very happy with the noise, or the fact that Buffy had obviously been out 'Slaying until all hours of the morning. However, she was less happy when Buffy showed her what all the noise had been about.

"That was in your school project egg?"

"Welcome to the Hellmouth, it's just kind of funky that way."

Her mom made a face at the remains. "What are you going to do with it?"

"I guess I'll take it to school tomorrow. Willow should be able to do the science thing with it and find out more about it."

"The science thing?" Joyce asked her, amazed at how inarticulate her daughter could be sometimes. Buffy just shrugged.

Joyce shrugged back. "I'll go get you a plastic baggy… or something, for it."

"Thanks Mom."

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The next morning before school Buffy phoned Giles to tell him what had happened the night before. He was ready to jump into full research mode and would meet her and the others at the science lab, before class.

She had already asked Cordelia about her egg on the way into the building and as it was also normal she was beginning to think that Willow's suggestion last night that it might be a trap set by the Gorch's could be true. Except, from what she'd seen of one of the brothers and what Giles had told her about the both of them, they didn't seem bright enough to set that subtle a trap. They seemed more the bear trap under a pile of leaves type, rather than the infiltrate a school project to plant a mini monster that probably would have gone for her in her sleep if it hadn't been for the fact that she was out slaying and therefore awake when it hatched type.

Buffy groaned. "I think I just made myself dizzy."

"I'll see your dizzy and raise you a nauseous." Xander said as he came up beside her. Buffy looked at him and had to admit he looked a little green. Willow came up on the other side of her with a "Hey." The three of them headed into the science lab.

Buffy brought out a small Tupperware container (it turned out they were out of plastic baggies) and handed it over to Willow. She took the little whatever it was out of the container and moved to hand the tub back to Buffy.

"Toss it. Mom said she really doesn't want it back." Willow put the container to the side for later disposal and laid the little creature out for autopsying. "That must be so great." Willow looked up and saw Buffy's confused expression. "To actually be able to tell your Mom about what's going on instead of getting in trouble when you couldn't explain things."

Buffy nodded. "Yeah, it's cool."

Willow left them at that point to go collect Giles. Buffy, still not comfortable with the whole Gorch's as the egg trap guys asked Xander about his egg.

"Well no, it hasn't done anything weird. Or at least, I don't think it has." He turned his left hand over and gave his palm a tap. "Are you awake?"

A little wizened face, its mouth wide open in a yawn, swam up into existence in the palm of his hand. "Yeah, what's up?"

"Is my egg acting weird? And, do you know what this is?" Xander moved his hand over so the symbiote could see the little monster laid out for autopsy.

Left Hand blinked sleep out of his eyes and took a good look at the thing. "No, sorry. But then, I don't know half the weirdness that goes on in this reality."

Cordelia came in right then and walked around the lab table to look at the little dead tentacle thing. "What is it?"

"We don't know what it is, Cordelia, that's why we're here. Capisce?" Xander said.

"Capisce, what are you now, a worl…" Cordelia had turned towards Xander as she spoke, her voice trailing off as she noticed he'd gone completely pale and had latched onto the edge of the countertop to stay standing. His eyes were closed, but his eyelashes were trembling as if he was still seeing something behind the lids.

"Xander?"

He gasped and opened his eyes, looking around at the two worried faces in front of him. "It's okay, I just accidentally kicked open an old language lesson of D's." He rubbed at his forehead. "Italian." This was as bad as when he first got the memories. Ever since yesterday, he kept being blindsided by somebody else's knowledge. On the plus side, he'd stopped passing out every time it happened.

"D? That was the guy you were at Halloween?" Cordelia asked him, her voice uncertain.

He considered answering that with fine sarcasm, but he just didn't have the energy. "Yeah, he was the guy I was at Halloween."

"But you're okay now, right?" Buffy asked.

"Yeah, I'm good. Now what were we talking about."

"You wanted to know about the egg." Left Hand reminded them. "I've been holding it in stasis, so even if it was odd, it wouldn't be able to do anything. Do you want it?"

"Yeah."

Willow came back in just as Xander was retrieving the egg.

Buffy frowned. "Hey, where's Giles? I know he won't wanna miss this."

"He said to get started. He'll be by as soon as possible."

Xander picked up a scalpel and handed the safe end of it to Willow. "You're probably the only one of us that won't botch it up."

Willow smiled at him, and then moved over to the little monster to start the dissection.

Xander looked at his egg for a moment, then went and retrieved a Petri dish. He separated the two halves of it, put it on the table and then dropped the egg into one of them with a splat.

"Xander!" He nearly jumped out of his skin when Willow yelled at him. Her face horrified at what he'd just done.

"What?"

Willow took a deep breath. "It would have been better to carefully dissect the egg, not splatter it."

"Oh." He looked down at his egg and then took a step back from it. "Yolk isn't usually blue, is it?"

Cordelia came over to him to look. "Ewww."

Xander grabbed a pair of tweezers and pulled away the larger pieces of shell, revealing a smaller, less perfectly formed creature than the one that had attacked Buffy.

Buffy looked over at it. "Okay, definitely more than just my egg."

"You know, I'd heard that Mr. Whitmore, the health teacher, has been off sick for the last couple of days. Maybe this is what really happened to him." Xander said as he gave the monster embryo a poke.

"He saw this and ran away?" Cordelia said, hopefully.

"Try… best case scenario." Buffy said with a grimace.

Cordelia grimaced herself, then seemed to notice something on the floor and bent to retrieve it.

"It's possible that Mr. Whitmore wasn't harmed. Maybe the offspring simply used him to return to the mother bezoar." Willow said as she continued the autopsy.

"Yeah." Xander said, turning towards Willow. "Maybe he… What?"

"What's a bezo…?" Buffy was asking when Cordelia came back up and swung a metal bar at her, catching her in the face. Buffy went down, hard.

"Cordy, what?" Xander looked from her and then back to Willow, who was about to brain him with a microscope. He caught it, wrenched it from her grip and then tossed it aside. Without even giving it a thought, he dropped as Cordelia swung the bar at the back of his head. He landed flat on the floor and then pushed himself up, kicking out behind him. His foot caught Cordelia in the knee and she dropped to the linoleum, the metal bar clanging as it landed a few inches from his head.

He came up off the floor fast. Willow, who had been casting about for something else to hit him with looked at him blankly as his fist connected with her solar plexus. All of the air in her rushed out in one push and her eyes rolled up into her head as she passed out.

He lowered her to the floor, shaken. He'd done all of this on autopilot, not even stopping to think about who he was doing it to. "I thought I would have train my body to match the memories I opened yesterday."

"You probably will still have to kid. I think this was some sort of danger overdrive mixed with pure unthinking instinct. You would never have just taken Willow out like that otherwise."

He heard Cordelia grunt as she tried to stand back up. He really hoped he hadn't shattered her knee with that move. He stepped over to her. "I don't want to have to hit you again." Cordelia looked at him with a complete lack of emotion and continued to attempt to stand.

"Here, let me." Left Hand reached out for the girl. As soon as he touched her shoulder, she stilled. Her eyes rolled up into her head before she passed out, asleep.

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It didn't take Xander and Left Hand long to find the little tentacle things attached to the backs of Willow and Cordelia. Left Hand cautioned against trying to remove them, as they appeared to have latched into the girl's central nervous system and pulling them off could kill them or at the very least cripple them.

They moved on to someone they might have a better chance at helping and looked Buffy over. Left Hand said that it should be safe to move her, carefully. Sadly, there wasn't much he could do to wake her up. The sleep trick and analysis had taken a lot out of him and Xander wasn't strong enough to allow him to use healing abilities on anyone other than himself and Xander. He wouldn't be able to generate enough power even if he got an extra boost from taking in the four elements. Besides, even with D it had been a long, long time before he'd figured out the trick of using their energies to help someone else. Give the kid a few decades and they would probably be able to do it, but as for right now, they were screwed.

Thankfully the science lab wasn't in use this morning, so Xander just waited until the first class started and then picked Buffy up, carrying her through the empty halls to the library.

"Giles?" He called out as he pushed the doors to the library open. When there was no answer he grunted and carried Buffy into librarian's office. With a sigh of relief, he laid her down on the couch. He covered her over with a blanket that was kept at the end of the sofa, before going to look for the Watcher.

Xander walked out of the office just as Giles came into the library. He was carrying a box, whose contents rustled and slithered.

"Giles?"

"Ah, Xander, I was just about to join the rest of you in the science lab. I'm afraid I got tied up with a book delivery." He indicated the box by pointing at it with his chin.

"Uh huh. I didn't realize literature was so mobile." Xander remarked as the box started to rock in Giles' hands.

Giles' face went completely blank and he put the box down on the checkout counter. He reached for something that was sitting on the desk just below the counter and pulled out one-half of the quarterstaff that Xander had broken the day before.

"Awww, crap."

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Fighting Giles was a lot harder than fighting the girls had been. For one thing, he was ready for Xander to fight back, for another; whatever was controlling him apparently had access to the librarian's skills. As a Watcher Giles had studied the fighting techniques that he would in turn teach to his Slayer and he was good at them.

Xander managed to avoid the first few blows before taking one at the shoulder and one to his ribs. Xander clutched at his side and tried to come up with something to do, because whatever had gotten him moving during Willow and Cordelia's attack wasn't working now.

"Kid, I hate to suggest it, but unless you want you and Buffy to end up like him then I think you're going to have to."

"Have to," Xander ducked one of Giles' swings. "Do, ah," He discovered that Giles could switch hit and blocked with his right arm, surprised that neither it nor the staff had broken with the impact. "What?" He gasped out as Giles staggered him back with a punch to the gut. He was still trying to breathe when Giles knocked him across and over the reading table with a swing that was most definitely trying for the fences.

Xander landed on his butt, hard. His teeth, already bared in pain cut into his lip. He didn't even have time to think before he'd swallowed the blood.

"Ah, that." Left Hand said, answering his earlier question.

Giles came around the table as Xander stood up smoothly with his eyes clenched shut. The older man swung at the boy, who, despite not looking, caught the broken staff and yanked it out of his hands. He twirled the stick around as if it was nothing and lashed out with it so quickly that the possessed librarian was unconscious before he literally knew what had hit him.

Xander dropped the stick and clamped his hands down on the table. His eyes opened. The entirety of them blood red and glowing with a ghastly light. With a jerk and a gasp, his power blew through the school. It caused several of the students and staff members that hadn't been possessed yet to drop what they were doing and move for the nearest exit. Xander's former Home Ec. class out and out bolted.

The rest of the students shook off the sudden feeling of dread and continued on to class. Like the possessed ones, they simply didn't have enough sense to leave.

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The slithering things in the box turned out to be hatchlings that hadn't hooked on to anyone yet. Left Hand described them as tasty and Xander suddenly understood why the thing with bug guy had made Cordelia turn green.

They looked Giles over. The possessed Watcher was unconscious and no doubt concussed, but would probably be alright. Xander picked him up and laid him out on the reading table, as the couch in the back was already taken.

Xander sat down in one of the chairs and tried to ignore how the muscles in his body were twitching, his system still on overdrive from just the taste of his blood.

"So, what do I do now?" He asked, to no one in particular.

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Xander pulled one of the library's potted plants out of its container and shook the dirt out onto an unfolded piece of newspaper.

"I'm not sure I like this idea." He said as he did the same to another plant. "I already feel like I'm going to jump out of my skin and you want take in more power."

"I told you, this power is different and it's more mine than yours." His hand told him.

Xander grunted, suspecting that that was an over simplification, but the only way to be sure was to use his other set of memories and he really didn't want to stir those up right now. He finished collecting the dirt from all the potted plants and then went into Giles' office, looking for water.

No fridge, no sink, no bottled water… ah, an electric kettle. He picked it up, feeling something slosh as he did. A quick look proved that it was still half-full.

Fire turned out to be simple, Giles was old fashioned enough to keep matches and candles in case of a blackout or an emergency ritual. The symbiote would have to gather air on its own.

"So, is there any order to this?"

"It can depend on what we're trying to do. For this, I would go with the basics. Earth, Air, Fire, Water."

Xander nodded. "Okay." He crouched down over the pile of dirt and placed his left hand on top of it. Chewing noises commenced and he held it there until all the earth was gone."

"Up."

Xander raised his hand and the countenanced carbuncle opened its mouth and started to draw in air. The suction was so great that Xander narrowed his eyes against the wind and he grabbed onto the kettle of water, afraid that it might be tipped over by the force of the vacuum. It seemed to go on forever, but probably lasted little more than a minute. When it stopped, the silence was almost painful.

"Fire," his hand said.

Xander stood up, put the candle he had fetched from Giles office on the checkout desk's counter and lit it with a match. He put his hand up near it and once again, the symbiote breathed in. It wasn't as strong as the air pull had been, but it was strong enough that it should normally have snuffed the candle out. Instead, the flame stayed lit as it was pulled towards Left Hand's mouth. The fire entered in a continuous stream until the hand stopped its intake.

"And water."

Xander picked the kettle up off the floor and carefully poured the contents into Left Hand's mouth. Xander took a deep breath as the little face drank. There was power flowing into him, but it seemed smoother and easier to deal with than the jagged edges that came with accessing the side of him that was not human.

"Done." Left Hand said as he swallowed the last drop of liquid. It was just in time. The librarian on the table started to stir and sat up. Xander walked over to him.

"Giles, you're quite likely concussed and this is probably a really bad thing to do to someone in your condition so… Sorry. The Watcher looked at him blankly as Xander reached out and touched him with his left hand. The librarian's eyes fluttered for a moment and he passed out again, only this time it was in sleep.

Left Hand sighed. "That's a hell of a lot easier to do at full power. He should be asleep for hours."

Xander looked at him. "What about Cordelia?"

"She'll probably wake up in the next half an hour or so, assuming she hasn't already. It was the best I could do at the time." A pause. "What are you thinking?"

"Willow said something about there being a 'mother' bezoar and that means that the eggs are coming from somewhere. We need to find that somewhere."

"And you think that you might be able to follow Cordelia to that somewhere."

Xander shrugged. "It's worth a shot." He grimaced. "Assuming of course her knee is good enough for her to stand and walk on."

"Hmmm."

While his hand mused a moment Xander walked back to the checkout desk, only just now noticing the books that had been piled up on it. The one on top of the pile was opened, but the pages had been blown around by Left Hand's air intake. It was no longer at the spot that Giles had left it. He flipped through it, hoping that Giles might have found something before he'd been taken over.

He stopped at the picture of a disk like tentacle thing.

"Bezoar. Pre-pre-historic parasite. The mother hibernates underground, laying eggs. The offspring then attach themselves to a host, taking control of their motor functions through neural clamping. Xander read.

"That's probably as uncomfortable as it sounds." Left Hand added.

"Hibernates underground." Xander mused.

"So, the basement?"

Xander sighed. "The basement."

Xander chose an axe from the book cage and slipped it into a duffle bag so he could drag it through the school without anyone freaking out on him. He took one more quick look and listen around the library, checking for any more of the hatchlings. It was a good thing he did, because he actually found one in the card catalogue. Left Hand took care of it and Xander locked the doors to the library. It wasn't as safe a place as he'd like to leave Buffy and Giles in, but there wasn't much other choice. They should be fine for a few hours. It was still daylight and classes where in session so the vampires Buffy had been keeping an eye out for probably wouldn't be a problem until sundown. The door to Giles' office could be locked from the inside without a key, so he set it and closed it, hoping to give Buffy some added protection.

Giles he handcuffed to the reading table. He also made a mental note never to ask the Watcher why he kept a pair of them in the bottom drawer of his desk. He rummaged the library keys out of the librarian's coat as well as the set behind the counter before he'd left.

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"You always take me to such interesting places." Left Hand quipped as they walked through the boiler room in the schools lower level.

"Hey, you can't beat something like this." Xander said. "Look, there's a boiler, and another boiler and… a hole in the wall leading off somewhere dark and dangerous."

"Oh, joy."

They followed the tunnels until they came to the place where some of the students and teachers had excavated and were carefully collecting more eggs. A quick look showed him that Willow was in there. He didn't see Cordelia anywhere, but there was a good chance that she was still asleep.

"What do I do now? Or better yet, what would Buffy do?"

"She would probably fake her way in there until she could get close enough to the creature to attack it with the axe. Once there she'd hack it to pieces." Left Hand said.

They looked at each other and nodded. "Works." They both said at the same time.

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Once the creature was dead, the smaller ones all died off as well, leaving everyone briefly unconscious and deeply confused. Xander helped to herd them to the surface. He left them milling around in the school hallways and headed over to the science lab to see if Cordelia was still there. She was. She was also conscious and very much in pain. Her knee was truly messed up. Xander helped her to stand and half carried her to the front doors, leaving her with the paramedics that had just arrived. Thankfully, someone on the staff was on the ball.

Once he knew Cordy was getting help he took off for the library, opening the doors just as Giles finished picking the lock on the handcuffs.

"Huh, the shock from the Mother Bezoar dieing must have been enough to knock him out the sleep charm." Left hand said, his voice surprised.

Giles looked at Xander with a great deal of confusion. "Xander, what's going on?"

"Not sure I can explain that in ten words or less." He said as he walked over to the library office and unlocked the door. Buffy was still lying on the couch, out cold. "I think someone started saying something about a gas leak, which will do for now. I'll try to explain everything tomorrow. Right now, we need to get the paramedics in here for Buffy. She has already been unconscious for far longer than is healthy."

"Good Lord, what caused that?" Giles asked, coming over to stand by Xander and look in at Buffy on the couch of his office.

"Cordelia with a metal bar in the Science Lab."

"What?"

"That is part of what I'll explain tomorrow. Stay here. I'll go grab the paramedics. Your head probably isn't very good either."

Giles reached up to feel at the side of his skull as Xander left. He winced when he found a lump, a very painful one. Sighing he slumped against the doorframe of the office.

He turned and looked over the library, hoping nothing would be too out of place. They didn't need the paramedics asking any awkward question. Everything seemed to be all right, except… why was his kettle sitting on the checkout counter. He took a step towards it and stopped when he saw the remains of the libraries potted plants piled up by the book cage.

Tomorrow had better be a very interesting explanation.

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Buffy's mom was not a happy camper when she met them at the hospital. She looked like she would like to hit Giles over the head with shovel, then use it to bury him, but was only refraining because the librarian had also come out of the day's adventures with injuries. That didn't mean she couldn't chew him out, something she did for all the hours it took before Buffy regained consciousness.

"How can you not keep her safe at the school at least? It's bad enough that she risks her life at night. She shouldn't have to spend the days looking over her shoulder as well. You're supposed to be a Watcher, so watch out for her dammit."

She was only slightly mollified when her daughter woke up pretty much fully healed. There were occasionally some perks to being a slayer.

Willow was alright, although her stomach was tender from the punch Xander had landed. Cordelia… Well her knee wasn't shattered, but she wasn't going to be walking on it for the next couple of weeks. She would have physiotherapy to look forward to for some time and cheerleading was pretty much over for her for the rest of the semester, if not the year. Xander had winced when he'd heard that, but it was far better than the possibility that she'd never properly use that leg again.

Cordelia would have her revenge though, as she'd use Xander as a pack mule and her own personal fetch and carry boy for the foreseeable future.

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The next night Buffy was once more out hunting the Gorch brothers. She was alone, as Giles had suggested that the brothers might not be willing to show themselves when it was obvious she had backup from Angel. She suspected he was right so she was currently walking one of Sunnydale's many graveyards alone, although Angel was in screaming range should she need him.

The Gorch she'd first had a run in with at the mall came around one of the large old trees that dotted the graveyard. "I told you this weren't over."

The Gorch she hadn't met before dropped down out of the tree to land beside his brother. "She's so cute. And little. Think we can keep her?"

"Guys." She said smiling, while two stakes seemed to materialize from out of nowhere. "I've been looking forward to this, really."

It was a dusty and happy Slayer that met up with Angel a rousing ten minutes later. Tonight, she had earned her smoochies.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Vampire Hunter D belong to their perspective owners. I am not one of them. I'm just borrowing them for entertainment purposes and no money shall be made from this entertainment.

A Hunter's Tale or How Did We Get from Here to There

By Colleen

Chapter 6

_There is still no cure for the common birthday. ~John Glenn_

One of the gifts that appeared to be somewhat hit or miss for a Slayer was the ability to receive prophetic dreams. In truth, all slayers got them to some degree. It was just that dreams, even ones of a possible future, were hard things to hold on to in the light of day and easy to dismiss as nonsense when they made one uncomfortable. Thankfully, Buffy wasn't one to shovel the scary things that showed up in her head under the rug to forget about them. Not when beating those things to death with that shovel would be much more effective.

When she woke up groaning on the floor next to her bed the morning before her seventeenth birthday she felt like she needed to upgrade the shovel to a bulldozer. She took a mental mallet to the images running through her mind and beat them into their proper shape before picking through them once more.

She thought she had woken up in the middle of the night, thirsty. Her water glass was empty, so she'd picked it up and left her room, walking towards the bathroom to fill it. As she walked, one of the doors in the hallway opened. She glanced in as she passed. The bedroom that they used for storage had become vastly larger, almost warehouse like. A pile of different sized grooved iron boxes sat in the middle of the space and all of them had tags tied to them, as if they were presents. One of the boxes twitched, trying to get closer to the others.

A breeze blew through the cavernous room, plucking a tag off one of the presents. Buffy caught it with her free hand. When she looked down at it, it turned into a small photo in an antique frame. The picture was of Drusilla.

Buffy turned back to the hallway and continued on to the bathroom. The photo and water glass disappeared as soon as she moved. She opened the door at the end of the hall and stepped through to find herself at a party at the Bronze. Her mom was there, drinking tea from a cup and saucer. That, more than any part of the dream so far, should have been a clue that she wasn't awake. The, 'her mom being at the Bronze' part, not the 'drinking tea' part.

"Do you really think you're ready, Buffy?" Her mother asked her, and then she dropped the saucer from under her cup. It shattered on the floor and her mom turned and walked slowly away. Buffy looked at the broken plate for a moment and then wandered over to where Willow was sitting at a table, talking to an organ grinder's monkey as if it were Xander. This made little sense, as Xander was off to the side, sitting on a horse and wearing a black cloak and hat. He was frowning down at the scene with Willow, but didn't really seem angry that his best friend was ignoring him for the monkey.

Willow looked up from her conversation and gave Buffy a wave. Buffy waved back and then looked up at Xander, giving him a tentative wave as well.

He blinked at her, a little surprised and then he smiled.

She had known right then that she would do all that she could to see Xander do that again, it was just such a smile.

A touch to her shoulder had her turning to find Angel standing behind her. She jerked slightly to see him in game face, not because it disturbed her, but because everyone in the room would see. She watched for a moment as people passed by without noticing.

"Buffy."

She looked at him and saw that his face had shifted back to human.

"I love you."

Joy rocked her, almost throwing her from the dream right then and there and she reached out to touch him, but he backed away.

"Angel?"

He looked at her sadly.

She gasped as she'd felt a knife enter her back. Twisting slightly, she could see Ms Calendar standing behind her, her hand still on the hilt of the blade.

"I'm sorry." The teacher said and then she pulled the knife back out.

With a pained sound Buffy dropped to her knees. She looked up for help, only to see Angel struggling in the grip of several faceless partygoers. They dragged him away from her and threw him into the back of a horse drawn caravan. His attackers slammed the door shut and the driver snapped the reins and started off, skilfully missing all of the dancers who were gyrating across the floor even though there was no music.

"No." She turned to the only other person in the room with a horse. "Xander, stop them."

He looked off towards the disappearing caravan and shook his head. "He has to go Buffy. You can't be with him."

"NO!" She lurched forward, attempting to stand and fell much further than she should have from a kneeling position.

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THUD!

Joyce Summers looked up from where she was standing in the kitchen and frowned at the ceiling. It sounded as if Buffy had gotten up this morning by throwing herself out of bed and forgetting to catch herself. She shook her head and continued to spoon coffee into the filter. The shower started up shortly after and she puttered around putting breakfast together for the two of them.

When Buffy came down it looked as if she were ready to bolt out the door.

"Ah, ah, breakfast first young lady."

Buffy looked at her, her expression panicky. Joyce frowned as she poured her daughter a cup of coffee.

"Buffy, you couldn't possibly have found out about some new problem. No one has come to the door and the phone hasn't even rung."

Her daughter plastered a smile on her face that had Joyce narrowing her eyes. She knew that look now. Her daughter had worn the same one every time she thought she couldn't tell her mother what was going on.

"Sit." She told Buffy, indicating a chair. Buffy sat, looking mutinous. Her mom put a plate of food in front of her.

"Eat." She told her, sitting down across from her. "And tell me what has got you so spooked."

Buffy sighed and looked slightly apologetic. "There's something I forgot to tell you about being a Slayer. She looked at her mom, who was looking somewhat annoyed. "Not because I was trying to keep it a secret, but because I just kind of forgot about it."

"Okay, what?"

"Sometimes, I get dreams about things that are going to happen, usually soon."

Her mom just looked at her, her expression shocked.

"It's not that big a deal Mom."

"Not that big a deal?" Her mom looked like she was about to go off on a rant that would rival some of the ones from when she'd found out about the Slayer gig a couple of weeks ago.

"No, it's really not. They don't happen all that often and when they do, they can be… Vague. This might be nothing, but I'll feel a lot better if I can go make sure of that before I head to school.

Joyce sighed. "Make a sandwich out of your egg and toast; pour your coffee into a travel mug and go."

Buffy quickly did as asked. Food in hand she grabbed her purse and gave her mom a kiss on the cheek as she headed out the door. "Thanks mom."

"Humph, give me a call at the gallery at lunch and let me know if everything's alright."

"Am I going to have to do that every time?"

"Quite possibly, now get."

Buffy got.

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Angel turned out to be fine, well, more than fine in fact and they'd shared a few kisses, okay a lot of kisses before she headed off the school. She met Willow on the way and gave her the low down on her morning, with the focus more on her and Angel rather than the dream.

On their way into school, the two of them spotted Oz and Willow went off to talk to him at Buffy's urging. Very timely urging it turned out. Oz asked her out, so she now had a date to take to Buffy's party the next night. Buffy herself went off to find Giles, to tell him about her dream and see if he thought if there was anything to it.

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When Willow came in, Xander noticed that she looked happier than usual.

"So, Buffy's shindig tomorrow." He said as he came up beside her on the way to the student's lounge.

Willow beamed at him and Xander smiled back. His bestest bud must really be looking forward to the party.

"Yep. Have you picked up all the supplies yet?" She asked him.

"Almost. I still have to get the chips and dips."

Willow frowned. "I thought Cordelia was getting those."

Xander sighed. "She is. Which means that since she's laid up at the moment and will be on crutches at the party, I am."

"Well, you are the one who dislocated her knee."

"Self defence. I had little choice and no time to come up with anything else." He paused, and looked her over. "Speaking of, how are you?" Even though his voice was jovial, inside he worried. It had been close to a week since the egg incident and every night he'd dreamed about that short little fight in the science lab. Only in his dreams (nightmares), he'd snapped Cordy's leg in two just before putting his fist all the way through Willow's stomach, to come out clutching her spinal cord on the other end.

He'd liked to blow the images off as ridiculous, but it was hard when he knew that under the right circumstances he was physically capable of doing exactly that. And even with the graphicness of his dream aside, he could easily have killed Willow. There were just too many vulnerable organs in the human body.

"I'm good." Willow said, not intending to tell him about the more embarrassing problems she'd had because of that punch. It would just freak Xander out and it didn't matter anyway, because none of the problems had been life threatening, just a little scary.

"Good," Xander nodded. "Good."

Giles came out of the lounge, obviously looking for them and they joined him at one of the tables. "Xander, Willow." He looked around and then continued more quietly. "Is everything in order for the party?

"Yep."

"Uh, huh."

"Please tell me there will be alcohol."

All three of them looked at Xander's left hand.

"We don't drink." He told it tersely.

"You mean you don't drink. Me, I want to party."

Xander sighed. "There is something wrong with the world when a man's appendage is more of a party hound than he is."

Giles cleared his throat. "That would depend on the appendage."

The two teens looked at the librarian in shock. Since Left Hand didn't say anything, it was quite possible he was in the same state of being.

"Here comes Buffy." Giles said, ignoring the fact that they were still processing the last thing he'd said. "Now remember; discretion is the better part of valour."

The two of them just continued to stare at him, their mouths open.

Buffy and Ms Calendar joined them. The Slayer frowned as she looked her two friends over. "Giles, did you go and break Xander and Willow?"

He smiled. "I have no idea what you are talking about."

It was an evil, evil smile.

"Right." She said, before sitting down.

Giles frowned, looking her over. Ms Calendar joined them at the table while Xander and Willow just continued to sit there, stunned.

"You alright, Buffy? You seem a little fatigued." Giles asked her.

"I had this dream last night." She looked sideways at Ms Calendar, remembering her part in it, and then shook her head. "Angel was in some kind of danger, something I couldn't deal with."

"And you think it was some kind of portent?" Giles asked her.

Buffy shook her head. "I don't know. It's probably nothing."

"Yes, well, if any parts of it should start to occur, no matter how small, let me know."

She nodded. "Gotcha."

She looked at Willow and Xander again.

"Really Giles, what did you do to them?"

"I wouldn't ask that question if I were you Slayer."

Buffy looked over to Xander, or to be more exact, she looked at his left hand.

"Why not?"

"Because, you really don't want to know and if you did, you'd just end up like these two."

Xander shook out of his paralysis first. "He's right Buffy." He shuddered. "Just don't ask."

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The next morning during breakfast, Buffy's mom reminded her about her birthday shopping trip on Saturday and Buffy reminded her of a previous promise about trying for her licence again once she was seventeen.

"Do you really think you're ready, Buffy?" Her mother had been taking a plate to the sink and it slipped out of her hand, shattering on the floor.

"Darn." Joyce looked up to get Buffy to fetch a broom and saw the look of shock on her daughter's face.

"Buffy?" Her mom managed to pack a lot of worry into her name.

"Ah, sorry." She shook herself. "In that dream, yesterday, you said what you just said and then broke a plate." She smiled at her mom's surprised look. "Told you they were pretty vague."

"Actually," her mom said thoughtfully. "That sounds fairly specific, if not that important."

"Yeah well, it definitely vagued itself up from there." She went and got the broom and dustpan, handing them off to her mother. "I'd better go; Giles wanted a report if any bits of the dream started to come true."

Her mother nodded and tried to ignore just how strange their lives had gotten.

One of these days she might actually have some luck with that.

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"Hey Boss, another one of those packages arrived."

Dalton sighed and lowered the book he'd been reading. Just how he'd gone from minion status to boss since Spike and Drusilla had passed on, he wasn't sure. He also wasn't sure if he liked it. Yes, the first time someone had called him Boss it had been a kick to the ego, but after awhile he began to realize that the title of Boss was usually followed by some new problem. He'd also come to realize just how many problems had gotten solved before they'd become problems simply because the two master vampires had been scary enough that no one had wanted to cross them.

"What packages?"

"The ones that have been arriving all week. We've been piling them up in the office. I think Spike ordered them before he and his crazy lady went poof."

Actually, now that Dalton thought about it, he did seem to remember setting up the retrieval and travel particulars for a couple of items. He hadn't known what they were, other than some sort of birthday present for Dru.

Dalton put his book down and stood. "Better show them to me. "

They were still set up in the old factory Spike had been using as a base. At one end of it there was a glass walled office with a telephone. Dalton often used when he needed to order things or do daytime or long-distance work. He hadn't thought about it, but it had been well over a week since he'd gone in there. All of his recent problems had been much closer to home.

The minion, Chad, if Dalton was remembering correctly, opened the door to the office for him and then closed it once they were both inside.

The packages, although they looked more like oddly designed iron chests, were sitting on an old scarred desk that had come with the office and stayed because no one had bothered to chuck it out.

One thing Dalton had learned recently about being boss, you had to know when to delegate. "Open one of them."

Chad looked as if he'd like to argue, but he also looked like he'd been expecting the order. He trudged over to one of the medium sized cases and worked the latches until he got it open. He peered into the box, then jerked back, surprised.

"What is it?"

Chad gave him a confused look. "It's a foot."

"A foot?"

"Well, a foot and part of a leg."

Dalton came up beside him and looked for himself. Chad was right; it was a foot… and part of a leg. A blue foot and part of a leg. So, probably not human.

He examined the other boxes without touching them and then picked one that seemed like it might be the right size and shape. He opened it and just as quickly closed it.

Head. A blue head. A blue head that seemed disturbingly familiar.

He opened the box again for a slightly longer look and then closed it again.

Still a blue head. He glanced over at Chad. "Stay with the boxes. Don't let anyone but me back in unless I tell you otherwise and don't mess with the boxes. I have to go look something up."

Chad nodded, found himself an old chair that had obviously gone with the desk and made himself comfortable. Dalton went back to his books.

It took him a little over an hour, but he finally confirmed what he'd been hoping not to. He shook his head. Spike really had balls to bring this guy back together. Though to be truthful, he'd probably been doing it all for Drusilla.

He picked up the book he'd found the information in and walked back to the office. Chad looked up when he came in, but didn't bother to stand. Dalton checked his book again, and then looked over the chests, counting them.

There was one missing.

He almost sagged with relief. They hadn't been able to collect all the pieces of this disaster. While Dalton was busy mulling over ways to get rid of the bits he already had, the office phone rang. He ignored it while Chad answered.

The minion hung up. "Hey boss, one of our guys down at the dock just called. The last package we ordered just came in. It's been sent to a warehouse in town for pickup."

Dalton looked down to check the floor. Still solid. Odd then, that he had such a sinking feeling.

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Xander met up with Willow at school the next morning. They were both heading over to the library when a man they didn't recognize came out of Ms Calendar's classroom. Xander watched him go for a moment, and then looked into the computer room. Miss Calendar sat at her desk, looking both depressed and chastised. Sort of the way Willow looked when one of her parents played the 'disappointed in their child' card with her.

He moved on without saying anything to the teacher, suspecting that it would only embarrass her further.

As usual, Buffy was already at the library and they both wished her a Happy Birthday. The happy didn't go over as well as hoped. It turned out that the weird dream she'd had the other night had started to come true.

Of course, that meant that Angel was in some kind of danger, which Xander could live with. What he couldn't live with was Buffy tearing herself up over it. Once again, he'd be helping Angel.

"So, the only danger in the dream had to do with Angel?" Giles asked.

Buffy thought a moment. "Well," she said, scrunching up her eyes. "There was the room of weird box things that belonged to Drusilla, but they shouldn't be a problem."

Concern creased Giles' face. "True, however there are still minions that were loyal to Spike and Drusilla out there. If they did leave something dangerous behind… well, it might turn out to be what will place Angel in danger."

"Oh."

"I wouldn't worry just yet, though I think it would be a good idea if you were to me here at seven tonight and we'll brainstorm some solutions."

Buffy agreed and headed back out to class. Once she was gone, Giles told Xander and Willow to continue with the birthday plans. There was always going to be danger and if they stopped their lives every time it threatened, they would have no lives.

Besides, as Willow pointed out, Angel would also be at the party and that way Buffy could protect him and have cake at the same time.

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Best laid plans. In the end, it was a surprise party all right. When Buffy and a vampire came crashing into the Bronze through one of the windows and she staked the bloodsucker with a drumstick it was most certainly a surprise. Still, Buffy was quite touched that they'd gone to all the trouble to throw her a party.

Willow's date Oz took the whole vampire thing fairly well, once the basics were quickly explained to him.

Ms. Calendar, who'd been bringing Buffy to the party on the pretext of meeting Giles near his home instead of the library, picked up the box that the vamps had been after at a nearby warehouse and brought it into the Bronze.

"That's one of the boxes, from my dream." The slayer and the watcher circled the item, dismayed looks on both of their faces.

"I believe we have no choice but to open it," Giles said. Of course the expression on his face said 'hell no', but nobody ever listened to it.

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And the surprises didn't stop coming, only none of them were fun. The box turned out to have a hand in it that tried its best to strangle Buffy. Once they'd pried it off her and slammed it back into the case Angel and Giles both realized what it must be.

The Judge. A being that could by touch or sight burn anyone to death who held even a small piece of human kindness. Angel believed that Drusilla and Spike had intended to revive this monster and had been gathering the pieces to reassemble him. Now it looked like their minions were attempting to finish the job. They had to get rid of this part so it could never happen.

Buffy, Angel and Miss Calendar were discussing Angel trekking off for several months to lose the thing somewhere in Nepal. Not surprisingly, Buffy was freaking out because it seemed that the rest of her dream was about to come true, she was about to lose Angel.

"Xander." Left Hand said quietly, so he wouldn't be heard over the argument. "Let me see the hand."

"Are you nuts?" Xander whispered back.

"No more than usual. Please, just lift the lid and stick me in. I can keep it from trying anything."

Xander looked to the box and gritted his teeth. "Why?"

"Because I think I can make their argument a moot point, but I won't know until I try."

Xander hesitated.

"Look, I know you wouldn't mind it if Angel disappeared for a few months, but do you really want to deal with super depressed Buffy while he's gone."

Xander sighed. "No." He walked over to the box, unnoticed by the group around it and quietly opened it just enough to jam his left hand into it.

"Xander?"

Oops, busted. Willow had noticed and then of course everyone else noticed. He shrugged at them. "He said he thought he knew a way to …ha." Xander's eyes went wide and a very disturbing sound came from the box.

Cordelia, standing over by the cake with the help of a pair of crutches, made a disturbed noise herself and covered her mouth with her hand, her face turning slightly green.

Angel and Buffy grabbed Xander, pulling him away from the box. The move flipped the lid open and Giles shifted forward to close it. He glanced down into it for a moment, and then looked around at the floor, his expression startled.

"It's gone."

"No, its not." The voice was harsh, came from Xander and this time it wasn't his left hand doing the talking.

"Xander?"

The boy shook where he stood and Giles was forced to take a step back as an aura as thick as pain and as black as death spread out from the teen like fog on a London night. Xander shook himself free from Buffy and Angel and walked out of the Bronze. They followed him carefully and watched as he dropped to his knees once he was outside. Willow moved to go to him, but Buffy stopped her, pinning her friend to her side with a grab to her arm and a look.

Xander punched the ground with his right hand.

Giles slapped his hands over his ears. The sound had been louder than a jackhammer. A cloud of dust obscured Xander's form for a moment, but when it cleared the he was still on the ground, but instead of a sidewalk, he was now kneeling in a small rubble filled crater.

Despite the green tint to her skin, Cordelia used her crutches to clear a path through the people in her way and swung herself over to Xander.

"Are you through with the histrionics already? Because no one's had cake yet."

A small chuckle started, which shifted to a chortle, which turned into full-blown laughter. All of it from Xander.

He looked up at Cordelia. "Don't ever change Cordy."

She sniffed. "Why would I? I'm already perfect."

"True." He hauled himself to his feet, dusted off his knees and looked at everyone standing in the doorway to the Bronze. "Sorry."

"Yes, well, maybe you should come back inside and explain to everyone just what it is you're sorry for." Giles said.

Xander winced, but nodded and everyone filed back into the club.

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"Okay Xander. Where did the hand go?" Buffy asked him as she looked into the empty box.

"Ah, I'll answer that Slayer."

Ms Calendar and Oz both started and even Angel looked mildly surprised. Of everyone in the room, Jenny and Oz were the only ones who didn't know about the creature living in Xander's left hand. Angel knew, because Buffy had told him about it with Xander's permission, but he'd never interacted with it.

"And that answer would be?" Buffy asked the voice.

"He ate it." Everyone in the room turned to look at Cordelia, who shrugged. "What? I already went through him eating bug guy, didn't take a genius to figure out what was happening this time."

"And… and you reacted like that because…?"

Xander rubbed his head and looked sheepish. "I think that was sort of like indigestion."

Oz held up a hand. "I'm really lost now."

"Ditto that." Ms Calendar added.

Xander sighed. "My left hand is possessed by AN ANNOYING LITTLE PARASITE."

"Hey, I happen to be very useful. I'm pretty sure I rate symbiote by this time."

Xander made a growling noise and raised his hand so they could both see the small, withered face that lived in it. Ms Calendar recoiled slightly, while Oz just blinked.

"Anyway, it has the ability to eat… just about anything. Sometimes some of the power of the item transfers and… leaks out. So, sorry about that."

Angel looked at him, slightly dazed. "But, you shouldn't be able to do that to even a small piece of the Judge. He can't be killed. No weapon forged, and all that."

Left Hand snorted. "I am neither technically a weapon, nor was I forged and there is very little that I can't digest." He burped.

"And may I just say, ewww." Buffy added, looking disgusted.

"What you should say is thanks." Left Hand's rough voice told her. "Because of me your boyfriend doesn't have to go traipsing off to the four corners of the world just to get rid of that thing."

Ms Calendar jerked slightly at Left Hand's statement, but no one in the room took any notice, as they were all focused on Xander's hand.

Case in point, Buffy was looking at him, shocked. Then she looked at Angel. A slow smile spread over her face before she grabbed hold of her boyfriend, hugging him tightly. "Buffy." Angel said in a strained voice. She let go. "Sorry, it's just, ha!"

She turned back to Xander and grabbed his left hand, shaking it up and down. "Thank you, thank you, thank you. Best birthday present EVER."

Left Hand gasped when she let go. "Next time I think I'll forgo the thanks. Oh and speaking of next times. The next time you have to dispose of something, please remember that you have a handy and very deep ocean nearby. A little cement with a few wards and some complimentary religious symbols carved and you probably could have been free of the thing by tomorrow morning."

Now everyone was looking at him in shock.

"Well, yes, b…but…" Giles started.

"Hey, at the very least it would have put it out of reach long enough to find the other pieces and deal with them too. Just, keep it in mind if something like this comes up again. Now, did someone say there was cake?"

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Chad had to admit, this was the first time Dalton had ever scared him.

"You lost it? You had a piece of a creature that when assembled could bring about Armageddon and you lost it?"

Chad suspected that he was about to find out what it would be like to be beaten to death by a book. And given the size and possible magical effect of the one that Dalton was carrying, it wouldn't take more than a few swings.

"The Slayer showed up. What were we supposed to do?"

Dalton froze for a moment. "The Slayer?"

"Yeah."

Dalton pondered that for a moment. That the Slayer had found it was good. As soon as she knew what the piece was for she would do everything she could to make sure they never came together. Of course, that the Slayer had it was also bad, because she would now be looking for the rest of the parts and they were here, in their lair.

So, he could get rid of the pieces, or he could get a new lair.

Well that was a no-brainer. He picked up a phone book and started to flip through it. Somewhere in this town there had to be some place that could have received these things by mistake. Hell, maybe even several some places.

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The next morning the delivery guy pulled his truck up to the loading dock of the factory and shook his head. He hated making deliveries out to this place. Everyone who work here was weird and he'd heard that a couple of the drivers had quit on the spot after dealing with them, abandoning their trucks outside of the factory to walk away and disappear.

Or at least, that was the story. One that he wasn't interested in becoming a part of. And one that the police apparently weren't capable of doing anything about. The only reason he'd agreed to come out today was because it was a pick up and if they really needed something sent then whatever was going on probably wasn't going on now.

He hoped.

The factory appeared to be deserted. Hell, he didn't think they even really made anything here. Whoever owned it probably just used it to warehouse stuff that would later be shipped out 'from the factory' even if the stuff wasn't made here.

Everyone had an angle.

The driver jumped as an electric motor started up, raising the loading dock's door. Using his side view mirror, he could see a trolley covered in boxes wheeling itself to the door. He blinked, then opened his window and looked out it towards the door. One of the yahoo's he'd dealt with a time or two was pushing the cart. A shorter, bookish looking guy was walking beside him.

He decided not to check the mirror a second time. In fact, it took less than ten seconds for him to wipe what he'd seen from his mind and refocus on his job.

You had to love Sunnydale Syndrome.

His thoughts back on his work, he noticed that from the looks of the boxes they had been too cheap to buy new ones and had scavenged the ones they'd used from the local liquor store. It did however appear that they'd done a good job with the packing.

The trolley stopped at the edge of the door. No one in this joint would step outside when they were taking a delivery, it wasn't much of a surprise that none of them would step out when shipping.

The bookish guy gestured for him to come in. The driver sighed and got out of the truck. Clip board and shipping labels in hand, he joined the men at the door, hoping to get this over with as quickly as possible.

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As the delivery truck sped away with their shipment (whose return addresses were given as a non-existent parent company in L.A.) Dalton dusted his hands off and gestured to Chad to close the door. Hopefully this would keep the Slayer busy for a time. It was too bad they didn't have any master plan in the works, because now would have been a great time to implement it.

Hmmm, there was a grimoire he knew of being held in private hands. Maybe now would be a good time to 'borrow' it.

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Buffy arrived home in the wee hours of the morning in a happy mood. Despite the weirdness at the start of it, it had been a great party. With a yawn, she trudged up the stairs to bed. Sadly, she still had school in the morning and Giles had plans for them to track down the rest of the Judge's pieces, so a busy day was ahead. That was alright though, because her prophetic dream had been stopped in its tracks.

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Ms Calendar paced back and forward in the living room of her home. She didn't know what to do. She had a duty as part of the tribe to make sure that Angel continued to suffer. To do this she had to pull him and Buffy apart. Then the Judge thing just fell into her lap. It should have worked. They should have been separated. Once apart for so long she might even have been able to push Buffy towards someone else and then even if Angel did come back, it would be to a girl who wanted to be nothing more than friends.

And Angel would suffer.

Only it hadn't worked. So what did she need to do to make it work?


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Vampire Hunter D belong to their perspective owners. I am not one of them. I'm just borrowing them for entertainment purposes and no money shall be made from this entertainment.

A Hunter's Tale or How Did We Get from Here to There

Chapter 7

_What we need is a little distraction. You got an atomic bomb? ~Captain H. M. "'Howlin' Mad" Murdock, A-Team, TV Series_

"So, just how gone is the hand, anyway?" Xander asked his own hand as he walked to school the next morning.

"Ya sure you want to know?"

"No, but tell me anyway."

"Humph, well, if I spit it back up right now there might be enough left to work a connection, as long as it didn't mind missing a few fingers. Hate to admit it, but that Angel guy is right, this bird is tough. It will probably take a few months before it's completely gone."

"A few months?" Xander asked, sounding very distressed.

"Yeah, don't worry about it though, it's mostly because I'm doing it slow, to avoid another overload. In fact I'll be more careful about that in general. Usually we only share power when we're doing something difficult or one of us needs to take in something to increase our energy."

"Like you with the four elements and me with…" Xander trailed off.

"Blood kid, get use to it. For you it's as normal a thing to take in as bacon and eggs is for anyone else. Well it will be, once you hit your full potential."

Xander grimaced; having a sudden vision of blood covered scrambled eggs. Tasty.

"Anyway, unless the situation calls for it, I'm going to use what I can and shunt everything else into a reserve. Besides, overloading you like that just means we're wasting the power."

Xander grimaced. "I thought it was happening because I couldn't handle that much of it at once."

"Well, yeah, but you're improving and so is our connection. It's letting me do a little more stuff than I was able to at first. Still, we might need to bleed off energy from time to time, to keep me from getting too full. If you step up your physical training we probably won't have to do it very often."

"Nag, nag, nag. What is it with you and the training?"

"Just want to be prepared kid, just want to be prepared."

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Approaching the school, Xander noticed Willow off talking with that Oz guy she'd… he could barely stand to think about it and he wasn't sure why… had a date with. Still, the musician had taken the trip to the Twilight Zone with the mellow aplomb of a Zen master. Willow gave Xander a wave when she saw him and Oz nodded a hello. Xander waved back and headed over to them.

"Any word on what's up?" He asked.

Willow shook her head. "We just got here and I haven't seen Buffy or Giles yet."

"Guess we'd better check the library before class." Xander hesitated a moment. "You want in on this?" He asked, turning to Oz. If the musician was going to hang around Willow, then he'd probably end up involved in their weirdness from time to time. Better to find out now how he'd deal with it, rather than later when the Hellmouth decided to hit the fan.

Oz looked between the two of them. "Yeah, I'm in."

"In on what?" They turned to see Buffy standing behind them.

"In on a trip to the library." Oz replied.

Buffy seemed as if she were about to argue otherwise for Oz, before clamping her mouth shut. She'd been the one pushing Willow towards the musician and if he could handle their stuff, then so much the better.

She nodded. "Let's go then.

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Overnight, Giles had pulled together a boatload of information on the Judge. So much that they didn't have time for it before class. On the planning end of things, Buffy suggested that she and Angel check out the factory Spike and Drusilla had been using, to see if any of the pieces were being stored there. Everyone else would stake out the most likely places a package might find its way into town, with the hope that not all the pieces had arrived yet.

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Xander looked around the bus station, wondering how he'd lucked out on such a glamorous assignment. Yes, that was sarcasm.

He'd already dodged the four hundred pound wino who'd offered to wash his hair… he still didn't get that, but he'd dodged it. Now he was looking over the arrival and departure board for something like the fifty-seventh time that night and it still wasn't getting any more interesting. Thankfully, the night was drawing to a close, with only two more buses due in and one more going out.

When people started coming in for the out going bus, Xander gave a sigh and sat down on one of the cracked plastic benches scattered around the depot. It was less likely that the vamps would come in now, as any packages would be on one of the incoming buses. Still, he kept an eye out, as a vamp might slip in with the commuters to wait for the arrivals.

Even though he didn't shift out of his slumped position, the first person who came in without any kind of luggage (or as was the case for a lot of the people lining up for the bus; boxes, duffle bags or black plastic garbage bags), caught his full attention.

When another three men, who were equally unencumbered entered, Xander felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle. They were not vampires, that much he could tell, but that didn't mean they weren't dangerous.

"Cut one of them out of the pack." A quiet, if gravelly voice said from his left hand. Xander stood, stretched and then moved off towards the bathroom.

He was washing his hands and giving his only half there reflection in the mirror above the sink a questioning look when the first guy he'd spotted came into the room. Xander shook the water from his hands and went over the dryers, waiting for the guy to make his move.

He didn't disappoint.

The guy was attempting to use the noise of the hand dryer to cover the sound of his approach and it would have worked with most anyone. Even expecting the move, Xander was having trouble separating out the man's footsteps from the jet engine sound of the hand blower.

However, he became hard to miss when he stopped close enough to breathe down Xander's neck.

The guy's right hand made a move and the teen shifted slightly to one side and then kicked back with his left foot. He winced when it connected; realizing that he'd just used a manoeuvre similar to the one that had dislocated Cordelia's knee. He didn't let the thought distract him though. Turning, he found the man down on the ground, clutching his left knee. A broken syringe and needle lay next to him, its unknown contents leaking out onto the grimy concrete flooring.

Xander went down on one knee beside the man and slapped his right hand over the guy's screaming mouth just as the dryer finished its cycle and stopped howling.

Glaring at his attacker, Xander appeared frightening enough that the man stopped yelling into the teen's hand.

"Want to tell me what the hell is going on?" Xander asked him through gritted teeth.

The guy made a negative sound and attempted to bite the hand covering his mouth.

Xander sighed, slumping slightly. "Fine." He said, raising his already chortling left hand to slap it to the very startled forehead of his attacker.

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"Rodger that." Mr. Packard replied to the report that they had a man down and the subject had disappeared from the scene. "Leave one man on site with the casualty and await medical help. You and your partner should reconnoitre the buildings perimeter. Do not separate to do so. I repeat, do not separate, over.

"Copy that, over." The small voice on the radio said before signing off.

"Still think this was a good idea?" Mr. Green asked from the front seat of the van they were stationed in outside the bus depot.

Mr. Packard shrugged. "We need more than just our impressions of him to…"

Thud, thud, thud, thud.

Mr. Green and Mr. Packard looked at each other. The hiss of all four of their tires losing air at the same time had both of them going for their guns. Carefully, Mr. Green opened the driver's side door while Mr. Packard went out the sliding door on the passenger side.

A trip around the van netted them nothing, other than the knowledge that someone had punctured their tires with four wooden needles. The feat that was somewhat surprising, as the little stakes were slim, rough and the wood didn't look to be anything special. Despite that, they had still punched through some very tough rubber without splintering.

They returned to the van, checking the interior before getting in and locking the doors. Mr. Green pulled out a cell phone and called for a tow truck while Mr. Packard contacted the teams once more.

"Mobile base to team two, situation update requested, over."

"Mobile base, partner is still unconscious, depot staff have called for an ambulance. ETA seven minutes, over."

"Rodger that, over. Mobile base to team one, report, over."

Mr. Green frowned as he finished his phone call and looked over at his partner, who was listening to dead air.

"Mobile base to team one, come in please, over."

More dead air.

Only just refraining from rolling their, eyes both men pulled their weapons. Getting out of the van, they made sure to lock it down before heading over to the bus station. Following the same orders they'd given to team one, they ran their search together.

They found their men, apparently asleep and sitting against the wall of the closed shipping office. A nudge caused them to slide sideways and fall over, still dead to the world. A quick check of their pockets proved that they had the syringes they'd been issued with and neither of them had been used.

"Maybe you two will tell me what's going on."

The two men started and aimed their guns upward. Their subject was on the roof, although they were unable to see him as they were too close to the building.

"Mr. Packard, Mr. Green, I would like to say that it's nice to see you again, but given the circumstances, I would be lying."

The two men backed up, keeping their aim on the rooftop. When they'd moved far enough to see over the roof's edge, they found it empty.

"Mr. Harris," Mr. Green said, looking around carefully. "I apologize for the theatrics." He looked at his partner, who nodded and they both holstered their guns. "Our company is interested in you, but we needed more than just a standardised test and our own impressions to go on. Especially as we're offering to put out a fair bit of money on you before we expect to see any back."

Xander sighed and stepped out from the shadows at the side of the building, his arms crossed over his chest and his expression wary. "I neither like, nor do I have time for games like these." Not only was he displeased, the echoes of D's memories were very…annoyed. It seemed neither of them liked to be played with. "Given that, I find it unlikely that I will be working with you anytime in the future."

Mr. Green shivered slightly and was a little surprised when he looked down to see that the cement had a patina of frost creeping across it. He didn't think it got that cold in this part of California, even if it was winter.

Mr. Packard answered the teen. "We hope you'll reconsider, in time." He held up a hand to forestall whatever it was that Xander would have said, which would have been rude as well as pithy. "We won't try to force a reconsideration; it's just that we hope you will. If you do, an offer for a full College scholarship is on the table, along with the understanding that you may not be available for jobs due to previous commitments or conflict of interest."

Xander narrowed his eyes at the last.

Mr. Green took over from his partner. "We have been checking you out. We know you're involved with some sort of paramilitary group here in Sunnydale. We don't know what the groups objectives are, but from what we have seen we think they're trying to do the right thing."

"Would we be right in thinking that you would not be willing to walk away from them, even after high school?" Mr. Packard asked.

"You would." Xander pondered for a moment. "I'll consider it. Ask me again a little closer to graduation, in a year or so and I'll see what I think." He turned to go and then stopped. "Oh, right, I almost forgot. Try something like this again and you won't be trying something like this again."

Mr. Packard just had to push it. "Do you really think that you could take on our entire organization?"

Xander quirked a half a smile and shrugged. "Don't know, but I'd be willing to try. I doubt you're any worse than the Tarakans.

Between one breath and the next, he disappeared and the two men stood there, frozen, with their mouths open in shock. Both of them stared at the space where Xander had been standing for some time after.

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Xander kept an eye on the bus station while the last two buses for the day came in, but there was no vamp activity. For a change the human activity and been far more dangerous and annoying.

"A little pretentious of you, don't you think?" His hand asked him. "I mean, the Tarakan thing."

Xander skimmed the memories, D's memories, which he'd used to deal with the nights comedy of errors. He couldn't say for sure that allowing them to direct his movements had been all that smart, but… "I know I'm not all that much like D, which given his life is probably a good thing, but if the Tarakan's had kept coming after Buffy…"

"Huh, yeah, you're right. Even they'd have run out of members eventually. And kid, you may be more laid back than D ever could have been, but you also have some of the steel that ran up his spine. Just try to avoid the stick up the…erk."

Xander opened the fist he had just made with his left hand. "Sorry, don't know what came over me."

"Humph, likely story."

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The next morning check in at the library brought negative reports from everyone. Apparently, even the old factory had been empty; although it appeared that somebody was 'living' there. No sign of the other pieces of the Judge, which brought on the worry that they'd been able to resurrect the demon without the hand.

They were all contemplating that unpleasant scenario when the library doors swung open.

"Delivery for Sunnydale High Library."

"More books?" Xander asked as the driver got Giles to sign for his package. He remembered the last box of 'books' Giles had come in with and he hoped this one wasn't as slithery as the box of hatchlings had been.

Giles thanked the driver and hefted the box over to the reading table as the man left.

"Actually, I'm not sure. I don't remember having a delivery pending and the jobber the school orders their books from uses a different delivery company."

Giles pulled a knife seemingly out of nowhere and started to cut through the tape bindings. Xander blinked and shook his head. Sometimes he forgot that the librarian was a dangerous man in his own right.

Giles opened the box, pulled out the newspaper stuffing and looked inside.

"Oh, dear."

That got everyone to their feet.

Buffy carefully peered into the box. "That… Is not good."

Giles broke the cardboard box down, revealing a familiar carved iron box. Everyone in the room took up a variety of arms or hid behind something, or both. "Everyone ready? The Watcher asked.

As one, they nodded.

Giles worked the latch, opening the box.

"It's a foot." Cordelia said, stating the obvious.

"Yes." Giles said, agreeing. The foot chose that moment to twitch its toes and Giles slammed the lid of the box shut and backed away. "A foot that would no doubt be trying to kill us much the way the hand tried to kill Buffy. Luckily, I don't think it can get the leverage to attack the way the hand could."

Willow circled the chest warily before reaching over to pull part of the cardboard box out from under the iron container. She ripped off the piece with the shipping label on it and took it back to her laptop.

"I'll see if I can find out who sent it." She glanced back at the chest. "And if we can expect any more of them."

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Joyce Summers made a small lady like sound that a less charitable person might have called a grunt as the delivery driver handed a package over to her. She thanked him and hip checked the door closed. Hefting the package carefully, she carried it over to a preparation area she used for unpacking artwork.

She set it down, backing off a step to look it over. She didn't remember this order. A double check of the shipping label showed that it was addressed to her gallery, but she had never heard of the company that had sent it. She shrugged, it had happened before.

Choosing a box cutter, she began slicing through the tape keeping the box closed.

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"I guess when they lost a piece of this guy and couldn't pull him together, they decided to spread him out and share the badness," Xander said, looking at the chest contemplatively.

"So it would appear," Giles replied. He gave Xander a calculating glance. "While I am uncomfortable with a replay of the other night I have to ask, would you be able to dispose of this piece the same way you did the other?

"Uh, that would be, no way."

"Gotta go with the kid on this one," Left Hand added in. "That thing was too tough. When I ate it, I filled every power reservoir we had and as you may have noticed, there was still lots left over. We wouldn't be able to take in another one so soon without a seriously nasty overload."

"Overload?"

"Yeah, basically the tantrum the kid had the other night, only much worse."

"Hey! I am not two years old."

Left Hand snorted.

Oz spoke up then. "When you say worse, just what level of worse are you talking about?"

"Destruction in the mid-sized office building range. If you're okay with that, we could probably take on another piece. Maybe even a third, if it wasn't too big and you didn't mind losing a city block. Any more than that and I suspect the kid, I, and everyone else in a one-mile radius of us wouldn't survive the tantrum.

"And again, hey!"

"Ah," Oz said, nodding as he took in Left Hand's answer. "Let's not do that then."

"Second that," Cordelia chimed in.

They all turned back to look at the iron chest. "Maybe we should do that other thing," Buffy said.

"Other thing?" Giles asked.

"Yeah that, the sink it in the ocean thing."

Giles looked at the chest, his expression thoughtful. "Yes, I think that might work, for this piece at least. With any luck we'll be able to track down the rest of them and we'll need a variety of places to secret them. I'm afraid that Angel may still be making that trip to Nepal."

Buffy frowned at him, but the phone ringing interrupted her reply.

Giles answered it. "Sunnydale High Library. Rupert Giles speaking. Oh, Joyce, did you want to talk to Buffy? Oh, I see. A head. A head in a box." Giles looked around to see that everyone was focused on the phone call. "A blue head in a box," he said, nodding.

"A blue head in a box that opened its eyes when you opened the box." He looked to his Slayer and saw her system crank over from concern to panic mode. "You have closed it again, haven't you? Ah, good. Someone will be by to collect it shortly. Until then…put something heavy on the lid and stay away from it."

Buffy was already at the doors to the library when Giles hung up the phone.

"Buffy, wait," Giles called after her. She turned back to him, her expression both annoyed and extremely worried.

"Let me grab my keys and I'll drive you over. It will be faster and it would be better if there were two of us together when dealing with this part.

Buffy let out a relieved breath and nodded.

"We'll see what we can come up with to sink this thing while you guys are gone. Xander indicated himself and Cordelia as the 'we'. Cordelia looked unhappy about the assignment, but resolved to helping.

Willow spoke up from her laptop. "I'm still trying to hack the delivery company to see if there are any more packages." She looked over at Oz. "I may need some help with this."

"Doubt it," Oz told her. "But I'd be glad to."

Buffy was starting to vibrate by then, so Giles indicated she should precede him and they left for her mother's gallery.

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Joyce put the closed sign out, shut the shop's blinds and was now pacing back and forward in the front area of the shop, which as far away from whatever was in that chest as she could possibly get and remain in the store.

The somewhat distinct sound of Giles' ancient Citroen arriving had her peeking out at the street from along the side of one of the blinds. She quickly unlocked the door when she saw her daughter and the Watcher climb out of the car and waved them inside.

Once inside she turned a frown on her daughter. "Aren't you supposed to be in school?"

"I think my mom getting a demon head delivery trumps English class."

"Hmm." She'd have liked to argue that, but there was blue head in a box with a fire extinguisher on top of it to keep the lid closed. She didn't have much wiggle room for arguing school vs. slaying, especially since she'd been the one that had called for help.

She showed them into the back room and all three of them stared at the grooved, head sized iron chest.

"Do you want to look at it?" She asked them.

Giles sighed. "I suppose we must."

"Mom, maybe you should…"

"Stay right here." She smiled slightly at her daughter's mutinous look. "I won't get in the way."

Buffy went over to the box, pulled the fire extinguisher off the top of it and then because it was handy she readied it for use as a weapon. Giles moved to the side of the chest and opened it.

Inside, a blue demonic head look up at them, its eyes murderous and an expression on its face that would have caused a gargoyle to fall from its perch. The thing's lips were moving, but without the rest of its body, it was unable to make any sound. However, a lip reader could have told you that none of it was complimentary.

Giles slammed the lid shut again and Buffy slightly relaxed her stance with the fire extinguisher.

"So, do you know what it is?" Her mom asked.

"Unfortunately, yes," Giles said as he took off his glasses and polished them. "We've come across a couple of his other pieces over the last day or so."

"So you know how to take care of it?"

Giles put his glasses back on. "That, I'm afraid, is something we're still working on. For now, we'll get it out of here and take it someplace more secure."

Joyce scowled. "Do you really consider a school library to be more secure?"

"Yes, well, it's not the best place, but the book cage has been reinforced to handle a vampire's strength and all of my research materials are there, as is anything I would need to ward the thing magically."

Joyce's head spun for a moment at the 'magically' part, but she shook it off, deciding to save the headache causing ramifications of that statement for later in the day. "Okay, let's get it out of here."

"Mom."

"Hey, I just got a demon head in a box. I think that trumps the loss of business for one day."

Her daughter gave her a frowny, pouty look and Joyce had to smile. Mom one, Buffy… well she'd gotten one as well, but at least this made them even, so far… today.

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Xander came over to help them with the demon head as they carried it in through the back entrance to the library. "Hey Giles, Buffy… Mrs. Summers."

Joyce nodded at him. "Xander." She still wasn't sure how to deal with this young man. Even knowing that Ted had been a psychotic, serial killer robot, the memory of watching this teen decapitate her boyfriend with an axe could still disturb her. She knew it didn't make any sense, not when you considered the fact that she herself had driven a crowbar through Ted's skull when it turned out that the beheading hadn't been enough to 'kill' him.

Xander had noticed her discomfort as well and didn't seem to know how to deal with her either. The boy her daughter had originally introduced her too had been somewhat goofy. Now, with her at least, he tended towards polite and distant.

Giles and Xander carried the chest over to the book cage and locked it in; placing it as far as they could from the other piece they'd already stored. Xander frowned as he looked from box to box. "I don't think we should pile too many of these things in here. In fact, we should make sure not to have more than two of them in the same place or we may be doing the vamps work for them.

Giles had to agree. Spike and Drusilla's former minions might be expecting the Scoobies to collect the pieces together with the missing hand. It was unlikely that they knew that part's fate. There was also the possibility that the Judge could still be put together even with one of his pieces missing. The loss of the hand might make him less powerful, but he would still be capable of mass mayhem and destruction if the joining were to work.

"Well, it may take some time to track down the other pieces." He stopped when he saw Willow waving at them from her place at the table.

"It shouldn't take that long." She said, smiling at the wild haired young man beside her. "Oz and I managed to track the packages."

"Ah, you have a list."

"Yeah." Willow looked around as everyone gathered around the table, becoming slightly nervous at being the focus of attention. Oz gave her hand a little squeeze and she looked at him, her body relaxing as he smiled at her.

"They've sent the things all over town. Besides the library and Buffy's mom, they were also delivered to the Sunnydale Museum, the Bronze, the Sunnydale Zoo, Dragon's Cove… It's a magic shop just off the main strip," she explained, as most of the room didn't seem to know the place. "The library at the university," She paused for a moment to make a frowny face. "And Calax Research and Development, which is being retooled for reopening, so there might have been someone there to take a package."

"They are sending us on a merry chase, aren't they?"

Everyone nodded and made agreeing noises.

"What are you going to do with the pieces once you find them?" Joyce asked the room at large.

"Sadly they are, for the most part, indestructible." He cast a glance at Xander and then looked away. "We were able to destroy one of the pieces," he continued, his voice quieter in case it might carry to the head they had stored in the book cage. It was unlikely that it could hear through the case it was in, but that was no reason not to exercise some caution. "Sadly the feat isn't repeatable."

"I can get hold of a boat for an afternoon." Xander told him. "My uncle has a friend that will let me borrow it as long as I pay for the gas. A steel drum, a lot of cement and we can have one of these puppies on the bottom of the ocean by this time tomorrow. The only thing I'm not sure about is any magical protection you might want to put on the thing. "

"Hmmm." Giles picked up one of the scattered books and started to flip through it. There had to be something they could do that would make the thing more secure.

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"Well, even if we don't bring them all back to the library, we still need to collect the other pieces before someone starts messing with them." Xander threw the statement out into the air and waited for someone to catch it.

They glanced at each other but no one had any bright ideas for storing demon parts. Buffy sighed. "Maybe Angel will have a thought or two for long term storage, but for now we need those pieces, even if we have to store them all over the school once we've gotten them."

Giles looked up from the latest book on wards he'd been flipping through. "Everyone who goes out should be with a partner. I can deal with the museum and University deliveries. I have some contacts at both of those places. Cordelia, since you're still not very mobile you could stay here and help with the research."

"I could go with Xander."

Xander himself gave a small moan of protest, but didn't say anything.

"Yes, well, while knowing you're out there torturing Xander is admittedly funny…"

"And again, hey! What is with the teaming up against me thing?"

Giles gave a little smile, but didn't answer him. "The chance of you being hurt further should there be any danger is too great. If it seems safe enough you can help me at the museum and library, otherwise, you'll be here."

"Oh right, here. Alone in the library, with two demon pieces and possible attack by vampires while I'm on crutches."

"She's got ya there Giles." Xander said, glad to get some of his own back, even if it might mean he'd be fetching and carrying for Cordelia on this trip.

"Then she will accompany me to the museum and library. It should be fairly safe as both places are very public." He turned to Buffy's mom. "Would you be willing to accompany us as well?"

She nodded.

"I could go with Oz." Willow volunteered before anyone could suggest another pairing.

Giles hesitated; he had been planning to split the teams up so that someone with supernatural strength or magical knowledge would be in each team.

Willow pressed on. "He's got a van, so the transporting part is easy."

"I can also store anything we pick up in my garage for a couple of days. It's only being used for band practice and that won't be till next week." Oz added.

"Perhaps you and Willow could liberate the piece that was sent to the Bronze." Giles said thoughtfully.

Oz nodded. "If they were as vague about the contents for the shipment to the Bronze as they were for the one they sent here, then I can probably convince the owner that it's a prop we had sent to the club that came too late to use on our last gig."

"Good. Could you tackle the magic shop after that? I'm not sure what you might do to convince them to give the parcel up…"

"We'll think of something." Willow said. "Even if we can't get it, we can at least confirm that it's there."

"Very well. Buffy, Xander, could the two of you take the zoo and Calax Research and Development?"

Xander winced at the mention of the zoo, but nodded, as did Buffy.

Giles turned his attention back to Willow and Oz. "Do you need directions to the magic shop, Dragon's Cove? I believe I was in there a couple of weeks ago. Bought a paper weight."

Willow shook her head. "No, I know where it is."

Giles nodded and went over to the phone to start his part by calling someone he knew at the museum. He looked back at the assorted teens, all of whom were still sitting there. "Well, you all know what you're supposed to be doing… Ah, yes Charles," He said into the phone. "It's Rupert, I was wondering if I could have a few moments of your time."

As he talked, everyone except Cordelia and Mrs. Summers collected their things and headed out.

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Several hours later, everyone trudged back in.

Willow and Oz had actually finished first and stored the two items. The Bronze had gone the way Oz had hoped and the magic shop couldn't give them the thing fast enough. The guy hadn't known exactly what he had, he just knew it was bad and he didn't want anything to do with it. After they came back, Giles had them go out again and buy several bags of cement so that at least one of the pieces could be put somewhere safer.

Giles and Joyce, with Cordelia limping behind, managed to convince the UC Sunnydale librarian that the package she'd received from a company she'd never heard of was meant for the Sunnydale High library, rather than the University library.

Even knowing someone at the Museum, Giles had expected difficulties getting the piece from them, but Joyce proved to have skills at entrancing a man, or at least she certainly entranced Charles. In less than ten minutes she had him convinced that the unknown shipment he'd gotten was actually a pop art piece meant for her gallery that the sender had misaddressed.

She also had a date with Charles for that weekend, something neither Giles nor Joyce intended to tell Buffy about, not after what had happened with Ted. It didn't hurt that Giles was certain that Charles was human and not evil. Otherwise, he might have told Buffy himself.

They stored their pieces under the school's auditorium. There was a room for storage that ran under the stage and the theatre seating. They hid the boxes behind a stack of stage flats, confident that they would be safe as there were no upcoming productions. Besides, Giles had stolen all of the extra sets of keys, so only he; the cleaning staff who avoided the place and possibly the drama teacher could get down there.

Buffy and Xander hadn't had as much luck. They'd used a variation on the same idea Oz had for the Bronze and managed to convince the zoo that they had a prop for a school theatre project.

Calax Research and Development had been another matter. They wouldn't even let the two teens onto the property, much less talk to them about a lost package. Buffy would have to see if Angel could help her quietly lift the package later that night.

The package they did collect ended up in Xander's basement. He said it should be safe there as long as they didn't hide it to close to the beer fridge or the washer and dryer, as those were usually the only two things anyone went down there to use.

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Xander and Willow both called home to tell their parents that they would be studying at the school library that night with some other students and the librarian. Since both of them had established the existence of these study nights with their parents long ago, there was no problem with staying. For a change, Buffy didn't have to call, as her mother was now part of the study group. Joyce and Giles left briefly to do a food run, bringing back chicken in a bucket with all the fixings and everyone ate while they tried to come up with places to stick demon parts and the best ways to ward them against discovery.

"How about this one?" Cordelia asked. Giles looked over at the page she was reading and shook his head. "No, that's a spell for creating a fruit cake that people will actually eat." Cordelia looked at the page again. "Oh, that explains the amount of alcohol." She tossed the book onto the table and picked up another one.

Xander turned a page in the book he was looking at and sat up straighter as he read the new page. "A SEP field. They actually have those?"

"More or less." Giles said. He stopped and pondered. "That might work for casual situations, but not for anyone who was seriously looking for the Judge."

"What if we painted the containers pink, with orange dogs in tutus playing poker on top of a nuclear bomb, using pickles for playing chips?"

Giles just looked at Xander, who shrugged. "Maybe the pieces wouldn't always be someone else's problem, but what we hide them in could be."

Giles nodded. "That might just work… though I'm not really sure if a paint job will function well for an item that we'll be sinking in the ocean, however, we can probably come up with something."

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Angel arrived shortly after sundown. Joyce looked him over with some interest, as she only vaguely remembered him as someone who was tutoring her daughter. If she remembered correctly, that had been around the time she'd fainted and fell onto a barbeque fork. Her eyes went wide at the thought. She'd never owned such a fork and now she knew about something that would have been much more likely to have done that to her. No, surely Buffy would not have kept it from her if a vampire had actually… What was she thinking? Of course she would have. It was becoming more and more obvious that she was going to have to sit down with Buffy and dig into the bits that she still didn't know about.

However, that would have to wait until after they dealt with this bit.

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Jenny couldn't believe she was doing this, but she had yet to come up with a good way to separate Buffy from Angel. Therefore, she was going to be traditional and ask the opinion of an elder.

She knocked at the door of a hotel room. "Uncle Enyos?"

The door opened and the man that Xander and Willow had seen leaving Miss Calendar's classroom a few days ago stood back and gestured her in.

He indicated a chair and she took off her coat, laying it over the chair before sitting down nervously. He sat down across from her and waited for what she would say.

"Uncle, I have attempted to separate the Slayer and Angel, but my efforts were blocked. I have not been able to come up with another way to keep them apart and I am not sure that I should try to. There are terrible things happening here, in this town, which we cannot control.

"We do not control Janna, we are not wizards. We merely play our part."

"Angel could be a help to us. He has the potential to stop so much evil."

Her uncle shook his head. "Soon it will be too late for that. I had come here hoping to stop it, but now I believe that it was arranged to be so. "

"I don't understand."

"The curse. Angel is meant to suffer, not to live as human. One moment of true happiness, of contentment, one moment where the soul that we restored no longer plagues his thoughts and that soul is taken from him."

"But if that happens…" Jenny trailed off, horrified. "So many people would die at his hands and Buffy… She loves him."

"And yet she will kill him once it comes to pass, it is her duty. I suspect it may even be her destiny."

"And what if he kills her first? There would be so much death, it's insane."

"Yes. It is not justice we serve. It is vengeance."

Jenny blew out a breath, stood and grabbed her coat. "You are a fool. We're all fools." She slammed out of the hotel room with only one thought running through her mind.

'Am I in time to stop this?'

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While Angel and Buffy were off liberating the last piece, Xander dragged a steel drum up from the basement. He'd remembered seeing some of them down there during the egg incident. It turned out surprisingly enough that Oz had some experience with mixing cement. It seemed his father was big on DIY. Xander also dragged up some short bits of rebar he'd found down in the basement. He suspected it was left over from fixing the holes made in the school when everyone had been digging the mother bezoar up. He added the bars in a spiral, double-checked that the foot was still in the case, and then wrapped in in chain and dumped it into the drum, jamming it into the centre of the bars. Then came the semi-quick dry cement. Xander and Oz carefully used a longer piece of rebar to poke the stuff down as it poured, so it wouldn't have any air pockets.

Mrs. Summers provided the artwork on the barrel. Blue sheep with rifles hunted wolves in red hoods across an alien planet of limp noodles and deflated beach balls. That, coupled with a few danger, contents are radioactive labels they'd slapped on it should have anyone wanting it to be somebody else's problem.

Giles cast a preservative spell on the drum, so that the painting and the labels would hold, even in the water, for the next century or two. Then he cast the 'somebody else's problem' spell. They could still all see the steel drum, because even painted up like it was it was still their problem, but when the janitor came through a little later, it was obvious that he didn't notice it at all.

Buffy and Angel were just returning with the last piece of the demon puzzle when a courier arrived. Giles introduced him as someone with whom the Watcher's council had regular dealings. He handed him the Judge's head, which the librarian had chained and boxed up while the drum was being painted.

Angel frowned as he watched him go. "Are you sure that's safe?"

"Better than using a delivery company as our original senders did. He will get it to the council. I feel its best that they have at least one of the pieces and they are more than capable of keeping it safe.

"What about the other bits?" Buffy asked as she looked quizzically at the painting adorning the cement-filled barrel.

"There's a coven in England that is willing to take charge of one of them. I'll be sending that piece tomorrow. Don't ask how, it's complicated, but secure. That leaves four more pieces to get rid of, after the ocean trip. We should have time to choose their new locations. I doubt the Judge could do much even if those four pieces were brought together."

Everyone briefly considered what that would look like, shuddered and then let it go.

The doors to the library opened then and they all turned to see Miss Calendar. She looked terrible, as if she'd been mentally wrestling with the mother of all problems and had only come out victorious by clawing her way out over top of it.

She looked at Buffy. "I'm sorry."

Buffy could swear she felt the dream knife cut into her back. Her eyes went wide as she realized that the worst of that nightmare was about to come true.

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Joyce moved wearily into the kitchen of her house. She could hear her daughter crying upstairs. It wasn't a quiet cry, more like a soul deep scream that just couldn't come out right. She hadn't known her daughter was involved with anyone and she doubted she'd have approved, but to watch, as her child found out she could never be with the one she loved because it could essentially destroy him and leave a psychotic killer in his place was harsh beyond all measure. If she ever found out who ordered this life for her daughter she was going to gut them and feed their remains to some of the things that went bump in Sunnydale's night.

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Uncle Enyos thought things had gone very well. True, Janna had proved to be a traitor to her tribe, but he wasn't exactly surprised. The vampire also now knew the extent of his curse, which was annoying, but couldn't be helped. What mattered was that the curse still held and Angel…

He most definitely was suffering.


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: Not mine? Ha, I refuse your reality and create my own… er… what was the question?

Author's note: DO NOT PANIC! Original characters are only passing through.

A Hunter's Tale or How Did We Get from Here to There

By Colleen

Chapter 8

_Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame. ~Erica Jong_

Buffy moved like a lost soul through the days that followed. Angel was still in town, still helping them, but he was keeping himself to himself.

It ate at her friends, her Watcher and her mother to see her like this, especially when all they could do was be there to offer a shoulder for her to cry on.

Slowly she began to find her emotional balance again, but even the werewolf attacks didn't get much of a rise out of her.

She got a bit more involved when they found out the werewolf was Oz. Their newest member had just taken a hard shove into the deep end of the supernatural world.

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The day after they found out about Oz, Xander was waiting for him outside the school. The musician gave a stutter step of hesitation when he saw him, but continued forward, resolute. Xander slid in beside him, matching his stride with the werewolf's.

"Going to tell me to stay away from Willow?" Oz's voice held less emotion than usual.

Xander grimaced and shook his head. "As Buffy reminded me, that's up to Willow. Besides, I don't exactly have a leg to stand on when it comes to weird."

Left Hand snickered.

"Quiet."

Oz's lips quirked up in a small smile, before falling back into a straight line. "So, what is this?"

"What are you planning to do, to control it?"

Oz shrugged. "Looks like I'll be locking myself up three nights a month during the full moon. Giles has offered the book cage for now."

Xander nodded. "Yeah, that'll work for the short term, but what about after?"

Oz stopped and Xander did as well, waiting for what he would say.

"What do you mean, after?"

"After it becomes inconvenient or dangerous or whatever. What are you going to do to control it? Surely you'd prefer to decide if and when you change?"

"Giles didn't say anything about that being possible… And don't call me Shirley."

Both Left Hand and Xander gave him a snort of laughter.

Xander coughed lightly, as if to clear the laughter from his throat. "Giles wouldn't know." He paused a moment. "And I'm not a hundred per cent sure what I know can help."

D only once had met a natural werewolf, as apposed to the science created creatures the nobles made for their own amusement. That werewolf, by scent and feel… magical thumbprint if you will, felt the same to him as Oz did. That werewolf could consciously control the change and keep his mind once he had. D hadn't been surprised by the ability, even though he'd never met a true lycanthrope before, because he had previous information on the subject.

His father's library was extensive, but focused heavily on vampires and the creatures they shared the night with. The best of those books were written in his father's own hand and one of them was an instruction manual on teaching a werewolf to gain control over the change. D had read it, as he had most of the books in the collection. A wisp of that memory crossing Xander's mind at the beginning of the werewolf hunt sent him digging after it, the memory backlash worth the effort when Oz turned out to be their werewolf. It would take him a while, but he would be able to reconstruct the book.

After explaining the extent of his own changes from the Halloween spell and what he had stored in his memory, he warned Oz. The lessons might not work and it did it wouldn't be quick. It could take months, maybe even years to master, but it was a chance for him to have an almost normal life.

Oz was a taciturn young man, but right then he looked like he could have hugged the taller teen.

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Valentine's Day came and went. Oz started working on the exercises in the first couple of chapters of the werewolf book and he and Willow did the date thing. Buffy and her mom avoided the holiday with a giant junk food and chick flick bonanza. Angel lurked. Cordelia still had Xander dancing attendance on her even though her knee was getting much better. At least she did until Harmony hinted that maybe there was more going on between the two of them than just revenge for getting her knee racked up. Valentine's night, Cordelia declared herself fully recovered, freeing Xander from servitude and allowing them to stop being in each other's company so much.

Somehow, it didn't make either of them happy.

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Ms. Calendar. Buffy could barely stand to look at the woman. However, she knew Giles still had feelings for her. After the gypsy had confessed everything, he'd removed himself from her company, but he hurt every time he looked at her.

It was something Buffy couldn't stand any more. She told both of them they had her blessing, even if it would be a very long time before she would be comfortable in the same room as the teacher.

She also gave her the standard warning about hurting Giles, one she would carry out if Jenny were ever foolish enough to ignore it.

The two adults started dating again, carefully. Time would see where that went.

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All of the stress and depression of Angel's curse loaded up on Buffy until even a Slayer's constitution cracked. She came down with the flu and it was bad enough that most of the group found excuses to go out on patrol with her. A good thing, because the infection slowed her down during a fight with several minion vampires. She'd toke some damage during the conflict and passed out moments after her victory when infection mixed with injury became too much.

Mrs. Summers met them at the hospital, ready to tear Giles a new one for letting her daughter get hurt. He only escaped her wrath because she had to help the doctor deal with Buffy's fever induced babbling. It was another reason to be relieved that her mom already knew about the Slayer gig.

Thankfully, the doctor ignored her rambling on about vampires and demons, thought he did have to sedate the teen to stop her from trying to leave the hospital.

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They set watches on Buffy. With her out of it, some enterprising vamp might decide to waltz into the hospital and try to take her out. This was why Xander was sitting in the hallway outside of Buffy's room, his eyes closed so he could listen to everyone better.

When he heard footsteps walking down the hall that didn't have an accompanying heartbeat he opened his eyes and stood to see Angel standing there looking very uncertain.

Xander sighed. "I don't believe I'm going to say this, but get in there and see her."

Angel shook his head. "I just wanted to know she's alright."

I will not roll my eyes; I will not roll my eyes… Xander's internal mantra ran in the back of his mind.

"And you can do that by going in there and seeing for yourself. If it's any conciliation, I'm sure you'll be miserable the whole time."

Angel's eyes narrowed at him.

"Don't," Xander said. "You're about to ask me how happy I am now you're out of Buffy's life, but just don't. I may not like you, but Buffy does and I can't stand seeing her in this kind of pain. Now stop being an ass and get yours in there."

Angel looked frustrated with him for a moment before nodding and moving past him into Buffy's room.

Xander kept half an ear on them. Not to listen into their conversation, because he really didn't want to, but just in case it jumped to a screaming and throwing things level.

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Buffy woke as Angel came in. He looked down at her, so fragile looking as she lay in the hospital bed. "Hey."

That one word seemed to pierce her through the heart and yet she still answered back.

"Hey."

"Buffy…"

"Don't."

"What?"

"Don't say anything, please? It will all be bad. Just be here, okay?"

Angel nodded and took one of her hands in his. "Okay."

They stayed like that until Buffy fell back to sleep.

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The rest of Buffy's stay at the hospital was very Buffy. Annoy the doctors with I want to go homes, heal annoyingly fast and track down and take out a monster that was feeding on the children and killing them.

Yep, very Buffy.

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While Buffy was recovering from the flu, Xander and the other's took over patrolling. After using Buffy's normal routes for a couple of days, Xander started noticing a few holes in the coverage. Even a place as small as Sunnydale was too large for just one person.

"Regular patrolling would be a help to your training. Katas are all well and good, but real killing would be better. " Left Hand said after Xander suggested they start patrolling the University area as well as some of the less pleasant outskirt areas of town once Buffy was back on her feet.

"Well, that's a lovely thought." Xander replied, about the killing part.

"That's just the way the truth is. So, the university tonight?"

"Yeah."

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The campus at UC Sunnydale was busy, even at night. However, once you got away from the main hub, things got eerily quiet. Xander was standing in one of the more creepy spots as he attempted to unfold a map of the campus.

"Oh, are you lost?"

Xander looked up to see a small, curvy young woman with dark hair and interesting dimples looking back at him. He smiled at her.

And threw one of his wooden needles.

"You're too eager kid; it's not going to kill them if you don't get it in their hearts."

The young woman's face twisted into the demonic visage of a vampire and snarled at him as she plucked the needle out of her chest.

Xander sighed and pulled the sword he borrowed from the weapon cabinet out of a duffle bag.

Looked like he was going to have to do it the hard way.

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Xander walked past two frat parties, three couples, all human, who were making out in parked cars and a group of very drunk co-eds who were weaving their way down the sidewalk, apparently in search of cigarettes and fried eggs. At least, that's what it sounded like to him. He hadn't expected the human nightlife to be this busy. Shouldn't there be less party and more study as the University year crept to a close?

He stopped to consult the campus map again. He'd already done one circuit of the place along with a couple of criss-crosses through the middle of it. Once he had a better idea of where the hot spots were, he'd be able to come up with a better patrol route. For now, his movement was still rather random.

"Hey, you lost?"

Xander looked up to see an affable young man, who looked as if he'd happily joined a welcome wagon club and took his duties so seriously that he travelled the campus at night seeking students to help.

"Huh, same question twice in one night, weird." Xander mused, tossing one of his wooden needles. His aim was much better this time. The student looked down incomprehensively at the piece of wood jutting out of his chest, before proving he was a vampire by bursting into a shower of dust.

The dark form of a young woman darted out from behind a nearby tree and took off across the quad. She may have believed that she was invisible in the darkness, but for some time now night hadn't been much different than day to Xander. Sometimes he even saw better.

"We've got a rabbit." Left Hand said, watching her go as well. "You might want to follow, if there's this many of them around then there's probably a nest.

Xander nodded and started jogging in the same direction the other vampire had gone.

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Xander stood on a branch and looked down at a boarded up frat house. About halfway here the vampire took to the trees and he'd followed suit. Clumsy, damn near killed himself a couple of times suit, but he'd managed and was now fairly certain he hadn't tipped off his prey.

"We have got so much to work on kid. If you're going to fall flat on your face, I'd like it to be when you aren't in a dangerous situation. I want to be able to laugh at you without the possibility of getting us killed when I do."

Xander looked at left hand sourly, then carefully stepped from the tree he was in to the roof of the house. Moving quietly, he snuck over to a skylight. Looking through it, he found a room that was a bit of a mess. Graffiti, haphazard posters on the wall, stacked boxes of junk, twinkle lights and ratty furniture seemed to be the decorating theme.

And one, two, three, four vampires that he could see, with one of them being the five foot nothing brunette minion with spiky hair he'd been following.

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"He's dead, one minute he's asking this green as grass looking kid if he's lost and the next, poof." The minion told her story.

Her sire, an attractive woman with long blonde hair, sat in a chair as if it were a throne and watched the younger vampire pace. "Green as grass?"

"Yeah, I mean, he was actually looking at a map of the campus. He really did look lost… and young, like maybe he's starting here next year and was just checking it out."

"And you're sure it was a guy?"

The minion looked at her, affronted. "Duh. He was even in the tall, dark and handsome range."

"Hmm. New player then."

"There's an old player?" A blond, somewhat hefty male vampire asked.

"I'd heard the Slayer is in Sunnydale, only they're always female and I've heard this one is blonde." She looked around at her minions. "Has anyone done anything particularly stupid lately? The only time the Slayer bothers to hunt on campus is when someone's been blatantly dumb."

The minions all shook their heads. Not that she expected them to do anything else, guilty or not. She sighed, then looked around with a frown.

"Has anybody seen Marigold since we got up tonight?"

A male vampire with long stringy red hair raised a hand. "I did, she told me she didn't want to wait for me and went out hunting on her own."

"Crap."

"Should we go look for her?"

Sunday rolled her eyes. "Oh yes, lets. Because leaving the house and maybe even separating to give whoever this is easier targets is such a brilliant idea."

The vampire who'd suggested it shrugged, looking put out at being shot down.

Sunday shook her head. "If she comes back I'll chew her out for going out on her own, if she doesn't… She was a pain in the ass anyway."

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Xander backed quietly away from the skylight, moving across the roof and into the tree to shimmy down it… Okay, it was closer to a shimmy fall, but he landed well and without any excessive noise. At least, no one in the house came out to check.

He waited until he was a good distance from the frat house before speaking to his 'partner'. "I don't think I can take on four vampires at one time."

"Sure you can kid; you just aren't likely to win."

Xander made a sound that could very easily be interpreted as a growl.

Left Hand chuckled. "You could get backup."

Xander sighed. "Yeah, I could get Buffy and the guys. Heck, Buffy would do. She might not even need my help. Damn, I just depressed myself."

"Kid, before you start with the, why am I out here when she'd so much better than me, remember, you're doing this to help her. She already has more than enough on her plate just patrolling Sunnyhell."

Xander sighed. "I'm not going to be much help to Buffy if I have to keep running to her for help, am I?"

"Nope." Left Hand thought for a moment. "Look, I know your instincts are telling you to head in and wipe out the lot of them, but the rest of you is saying it can't be done. Listen to that second part. At the moment, you aren't skilled enough to take them all on. D could have done it, blind and half crippled, but you aren't D.

"Gee, thanks. "

"Look, all I'm trying to say, is you don't have to do this D's way."

Xander gave his left hand a calculating look.

"So, what are you suggesting?"

"That until you get a little closer to D's level we try a strategy that D rarely utilises."

"Which is?"

"Subtlety."

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'Subtlety, I hate subtlety,' Xander thought. 'It takes too much time.' He tucked his tongue into the corner of his cheek and carefully jiggled the jury-rigged lock pick that had started out its life as part of his uncle's taxidermy equipment.

"Just about." His left hand's voice came out muffled as Xander's hand was partially closed.

Xander grunted, but managed to keep his hold on the picks. With a careful twist, the lock moved and he was finally able to open the door.

And it had only taken him…. He looked at his watch, rubbed his eyes and looked again. Only eight minutes. He shook his head. On TV, it wouldn't have taken eight seconds.

"It would have been easier to break the window in the door." Xander said, as he peered around at the interior of the administration office on campus. "Faster too."

"Sure, but then you wouldn't have gotten to practice picking the lock."

"Grr. Fine. What are we looking for anyway?"

Left Hand sighed. "Anything on the house they're using. A plan of the place would be nice. Maybe even, why a perfectly good frat house is sitting around rotting. You would think housing would be tight enough they'd be using it, but it looks like it's been boarded up for some time."

"Why would you want a house plan?"

"If we actually know the set up in the house we could try a daytime infiltration. Catch them while they're asleep."

"Don't forget, vampires in this reality can move around during the day without that incense stuff."

"I know, but even they still have to sleep sometime and the more information we have the better our chances, so let's get searching."

Xander looked around the office, lost. His hand sighed again. "Start with the computer. Let's see if their eating patterns have been noticed by anyone. When they started using the campus as a feeding ground might let us know how long they've been using the house."

Xander sat down at the machine and powered it up. He had the feeling it was going to be a long night.

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The two of them tracked a number of disappearances back to 1982. This led to an article about the Psi-Theta fraternity losing its charter and their house closing for renovations. This tracked forward to a much later article about the house. Apparently zoning issues and city council red tape was keeping it unused.

"Since '82, that's what, sixteen years? Long time, even for politics… Well, human politics." Left Hand remarked.

Xander closed the last of the filing cabinet drawers. Other than basic campus maps and student hall pamphlets, the office had no information on the buildings that were part of or affiliated with the campus. "Maybe somebody at City Hall's been giving them a hand. Taking the town's population into consideration, the possibility that vamps or demons may be working there has got to be fairly high."

"Blood sucking politicians, what a surprise."

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They closed the office back up and Xander headed home to get a little sleep before school the next day. He'd actually biked to the University and it was over five miles back to his house so he was good and tired when he got there. Surprisingly, even though he didn't have time for much sleep he woke up refreshed. As he recalled, D didn't usually need more than three or four hours. Sleeping in the afternoon was actually a better idea for him; however, D only did that as necessary.

Slowly but surely, Xander's sleep patterns seemed to be changing to match. Since late nights were often the norm he was, when possible, napping after school and weekend afternoons to make up for the stress his system was taking being out in the sun.

So far, he hadn't had a hint of Sun Syndrome and he'd like to keep it that way for as long as possible.

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The next afternoon, instead of doing that sleeping thing, Xander found himself schlepping through the sewers underneath UC Sunnydale. There was a good chance the nest had chosen the house for easy access to the underground passages.

"You know, when you think about it, the sewer system in Sunnydale was really built much larger than they would ever need it to be." Xander said, looking around a tunnel that was probably three times the normal size for the era it had been built in.

"Hmm. Sounds like a city council thing again. Somebody over there has to know what goes on in this town. Worse, they're stacking the deck towards the vampire's side, which implies they aren't human themselves…"

"Yeah." Xander smirked as he used the small flashlight he was carrying to highlight a rather well done bit of pornographic graffiti on one of the walls. He didn't really need the flashlight, but sometimes he wasn't willing to admit that, even to himself.

He continued down the tunnel a few steps, before pausing and going back to look at the artwork again.

"I admit it's nice kid, but we have more important things to do."

"Yeah, it is nice, but it's dated. It reminds me of some of the underground art from the eighties. And it definitely looks like something that a frat boy would have drawn."

"Yeah, maybe. So?"

"Well, think about it. If you were a frat boy with access to tunnels that would let you move around the campus without being seen and would probably give you access to places you weren't supposed to go, wouldn't you use them?"

"Hmm."

"There must be an access near here." Xander said. "And it would have to come up on the grounds, somewhere close to the house. They would never bother to use it otherwise."

Left Hand raised Xander's hand and looked the wall over himself. "Say, doesn't it seem like this stretch of tunnel is a little newer?

Xander flattened his left hand against the wall and started run it along the surface as he walked. "Watch out for a door, or some kind of access."

"No door, no door, no door…. I don't know kid, I don't think… oh, door, door. "Xander peered at what still looked like unbroken wall, noticing that there was a larger and more worn piece of artwork here. This one ran from the ceiling, down to the floor and was an abstract painting rather than a dirty picture. Curious he scraped at a protruding part of it. Paint flaked off, revealing the glint of metal under it.

"Hinges." He stepped back to get a better sense of it. If those where the hinges then the doorknob should be… Inset flush into the wall and hidden in a swirl of paint there was a latch. He grabbed it and pulled. With a hiss of trapped air, the door opened. Xander yanked it wider and looked inside, giving himself some light with the flashlight.

"It's an electrical tunnel. There's one that runs under the main part of Sunnydale as well."

"Well, lets see were this goes. Given that it was hidden I think this could be what we're looking for."

Xander shook his head. "This town just gets weirder and weirder."

A short trip down the new and much cleaner tunnel brought them to an access hatch.

"No, the house is still too far away."

Xander nodded and kept moving down the tunnel. Two more access hatches later, he found one that had some very familiar artwork on the wall behind the ladder. Xander climbed it and carefully opened the hatch, coming out into a dusty box filled basement. No wonder they were having zoning problems. Somebody had built direct access inside the house.

Grumbling came from behind some of the boxes and Xander quietly moved around them to see who was there.

A vampire, the one with red stringy hair, was piling boxes up on one side of the room. "There's too much stuff up here, I can barely walk through the room, take it down stairs." He said in a very annoying falsetto. "I'd like to bring her down here and store her." One of the boxes tumbled down and the vampire growled.

"Here, let me help." Xander said, picking the box up and handing it to the vampire.

"Thanks." He said, taking the box. He froze, blinking. "Ahh, who are you?"

"New player." Xander told him. His sword was halfway through the vampire's neck before the redhead sorted out what the teen had just said. He probably had something pithy to say in his last moments, but it just came out as a gurgle that turned dusty when he did.

"One down, three to go."

Xander walked carefully over to the stairs that ran up from the basement. As he listened, he could hear at least one person moving around. Carefully he climbed, but it only took a couple of steps before his foot found a tread that creaked like an old horror movie.

"You still working down there?" A voice called down to him.

Xander grunted and hoped that would pass for a yes.

"Need some help?"

Xander did his yes grunt again. If he could get another one down here…

"Too bad." The vampire laughed. Xander grunted again, quietly and in annoyance. If he could take one more out, he'd be willing to try taking down the last two, even if they were together.

Ah, what the hell.

Xander charged up the stairs and around a corner into the kitchen. The rather large male vampire he'd seen last night had his head stuck in the refrigerator and was loading his arms up with food. Xander tossed one of his wooden needles at the vampire just as he was closing the door to the fridge.

The mini stake went through a package of ham, the tip only just piercing skin. The vampire looked at him, confused and then shifted into game face. "Ow, what was that for...Hey, wait, who are you?"

"He's too fat and your throw was weak." Left Hand called out.

"Hey, who are you calling fat. I just happen to be big boned." The vampire dumped the food on the counter and reached up to pull out the stake. Xander jumped forward, slamming his hand into the end of the needle, pushing it in further even as the vamp tried to pull the other way.

The two of them staggered back and Xander kicked out, catching his opponent in the leg and sending him to the floor on his knees He blinked for a moment, realizing how perfectly positioned the vampire was.

Fangs didn't even get the chance to try to struggle to his feet before Xander swung the fridge door open, hard. The flat surface slammed into the blunt end of the stake still sticking out from the vampire, forcing it into his heart. The vampire looked at the fridge like it had betrayed him, then exploded into a slightly larger than usual ball of dust. Even though the stake dusted with the vampire, for some reason the ham didn't. Xander picked it up and tossed it back into the refrigerator.

"Kid, I think we've pushed out luck taking down two of them..."

"I know, but I'm going to finish this today."

The hand groaned. The kid had a sense of humour and teenage hormones that made him seem like the very opposite of D, but in the important things they were the same.

Dammit.

Xander left the kitchen, carefully searching the main floor of the house. There was no one. He listened to the house, but couldn't catch anything. Not much of a surprise, as the last two vampires wouldn't have heartbeats, nor would they be breathing. They might be asleep, not moving, or not here.

Sadly, a search of the house proved the last true. They must have used the tunnels earlier in the day and weren't back yet. He debated waiting for them, but in the end Left Hand talked him into coming back later that night.

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That night, Xander stood on a branch of the tree beside the frat house and was very pissed with himself. The two vampires still hadn't retuned and they could be doing who the hell knows what. Someone could very well be dead all because he had to do this by himself. Next time, he was asking for help. He already thought that the whole, the Slayer is a lone fighter thing was crap, so what gave him the right to try it for himself? He stiffened on his perch as he heard voices approach below.

"It's great, there's only four of us right now and we've got the whole house." The female vampire that Xander had chased the other night said to the young woman at her side. "You can crash here as long as you like."

Xander tiled his head, listening. There was one set of working lungs below him and since they couldn't belong to the vampire, they had to be the girl's. Xander grimaced when he saw her. Girl was right. He didn't know how old she was, but her appearance reminded Xander of a lost baby chick. Tall, thin and far too pale, paler even than the vampire beside her. The cause likely malnutrition and lack of sleep, not makeup. Brown feathery hair finished off the lost waif look and she was lugging along a duffle bag with all her worldly possessions in it.

If she weren't a runaway Xander would go sunbathing, in Speedos.

It looked like dinner had been brought in.

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Rose looked around the semi trashed frat house, which meant that it didn't look very different from when it had been a frat house. She dropped her duffle bag onto the chewed up couch and plopped down next to it. The place wasn't fancy and given they came in through a basement window was enough of a hint that everyone who lived here was squatting. Still, it was warm and dry and there was the possibility of food. She wasn't sure what she'd have to pay for these things. It hadn't taken her much time on the road to learn that everything had a price. You just had to decide if you were willing to pay it or not.

Sometimes she did and sometimes she didn't and a couple of times those payments had been forced from her… a fact that she tended to squish to the back of her mind and did her best to ignore, unless it looked like a replay was about to happen. So far she didn't think that was going on here, but she'd been wrong before.

The woman who'd brought her here said they'd had a couple of people decide to move on so there was room if she wanted to crash. She could even have a bed, which would be an improvement over sleeping on couches or the ground. She closed her eyes tiredly. Right now, even the couch would be fine.

"Looks like everyone went out." Rose opened her eyes to see the woman… Dav she thought her name was, as she dropped an assortment of crackers, cheese and sliced meats on the coffee table in front of the couch. She plunked a couple of sodas, still linked together in plastic webbing onto the table next to the pile. "I'm going to check upstairs, you have something to eat." She gestured towards the food and then left the living room.

A handful of crackers, two slices of ham with an odd hole through it and half a soda went into the teen in something under thirty seconds. When it came to food and living on the streets, you didn't have to be offered twice and you didn't wait for someone to take it away again.

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"I am a stupid, stupid ass." Xander said as he forwent picking the lock to the back door and instead plucked out the entire dead bolt by digging his fingers into the wood and pulling.

"Kid, you can't save everyone."

"I know. " He pushed the door open. Rusty nails screeched, losing their purchase in old wood. "But if I'd gotten help this one wouldn't be here and in danger. True, she might be somewhere else and in danger, but I wouldn't have helped it along."

"When it's my fault, I damn well better save them."

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Rose stopped mid chew as she heard the back door screech open. She swallowed, wincing as the food went down square and carefully took a few sips of the soda to help it while wondering if the noise was the sound of something hitting the fan, when she heard Dav come stomping down the stairs.

"Damn, stupid fat idiot." Rose winced, at the volume of Dav's voice. "Too damn fat to fit through the window again, aren't you?" The teen saw her form flash past the sitting room door on her the way to the kitchen and relaxed a bit. Apparently, whatever was going on was something that always went on.

"Oh fuck, it's you!"

Or not. Rose grabbed her duffle bag, quickly stuffed one the boxes of crackers and the lone unopened soda into it before heading to the kitchen. She'd have gone a different route, but the only way out she knew of was the basement window and the stairs that led to it were next to the kitchen.

"Where's the other one? Your sire?"

That wasn't Dav. The voice was male, nice, one might even have called it pleasant, if it weren't for the fact that it seemed to shed rusty flakes of steel from the edges of it.

Rose made it to the stairs. They were around the corner from the kitchen proper and she knew she should just go down and get the hell out, because she could feel solid, pitch black horror waiting for her in that kitchen.

Which meant she had to look, or go mad.

Dav was standing fairly close to where Rose was, while a very good-looking guy stood across from her, close to the back door that was hanging open and moving slightly in the night's breeze. The corner of a kitchen island cut between them, offering both a protection and a hindrance.

Dav shrugged in answer to the young man. "How should I know? She went out before I even got up today."

The guy swore. To Rose's limited experience, it sounded like he did it in Latin. His eyes fluttered for an instant and he tilted slightly off balance before straightening up. He gave his head a short shake, then tossed something at Dav, who'd been poised to jump him.

Rose blinked as Dav batted whatever it was out of the air with her left hand. A solid thunk had the girl gasping as the item proved to be a short shaft of wood, that was now imbedded in the kitchen cabinets.

At the sound Rose made, Dav turned to look at her briefly. Rose backed away, the world seeming to move in slow motion. There was something very wrong with the woman's face. The best word that her mind could come up with was that it had twisted, even though that didn't seem to do justice to the extent of it. She made it back to the basement door and fumbled briefly with the knob. Once she got hold of it, she turned it sharply. The door opened, banged against the wall as she let go of the handle. Not caring about the noise, she found the light switch on the wall next to her and flipped it.

"We'll have to wrap this up. Dinner's getting away."

Dav's voice carried clearly. The girl didn't understand exactly what was going on, but being referred to as something edible was probably not good. She thundered down the basement stairs, looking for the window she'd come in through earlier.

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Xander shook his head. Vampire humour never changed it seemed. "Yes, let's finish this." He had his borrowed sword in hand and his mind firmly focused on the creature before him. He would not let his thoughts wander again. Besides, it had been a damn stupid time for him to access memories that had nothing to do with fighting. Why he decided he needed to remember how to speak Romanian he didn't know. Sure, that and English were D's original languages, but now was not the time.

The female vampire smirked. Whoever this kid was, he appeared easily sidetracked by the stuff in his head. She leapt from her spot in the kitchen, closing the distance between them in less than a second. She once again attempted to bat a weapon out of the way, this time his sword. She expected him to drop the thing in pain, his hand numb from the contact. Instead, he spun with the force of her hit, coming back around in an attempt to take off her head.

It was almost successful. She'd jerked out of the way at the last moment and a thin cut ran across her neck for a moment, bleeding just the tiniest bit, before it closed up and healed like it had never been.

"Damn it." Xander backed up; attempting to create the space he needed to strike with the sword. The vampire grinned madly at him and followed, not allowing him the room. She jumped again, this time dragging him to the floor.

"Get off. "

She looked down on him with interest and wiggled a little. "I don't think so. You know, you're kinda cute… I'll have to hold on to you until Sunday gets back. She might like to add you to the collection."

"No thanks." Xander heaved her off him with enough force that she ended up on top of the kitchen island. She landed flat with an oomph, surprised by his strength. She moved to sit up, but a fist to her chest shoved her back down. The clenched hand moved and she had just long enough to see the end of the thin wooden needle that had been shoved into her chest, before the energies that let her hold and use a dead body dissipated, turning it to dust.

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Rose was desperately trying to shove her duffle bag out the basement window. It had been much easier coming in and Dav had helped her with it. Things crashed and banged in the kitchen above her as she did. Everything went quiet just as she got the bag out. She was about to hoist herself out after it, when she heard the sound of metal screeching on metal. She paused. It wasn't the basement door, she hadn't even closed it. She shook her head; it didn't matter, because she was out of here.

"Now, who might you be?"

She didn't want to look, but once again, she had to. Standing at her side was a woman with long blond hair and a dress style that reflected the hippy era of the early 1970s.

"I'm nobody." Rose said, diving out the window.

Hands grabbed her from behind and she lashed out, trying to shake them off. She heard the woman snarl and she struggled harder, trying to kick her. Face, chest, stomach, whatever it would take to make her let go.

With another snarl, she was dragged back into the basement.

Twisted. It still wasn't a perfect description for what their faces were like, but it was all she had time for.

Rose screamed.

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Xander leapt the entire length of the basement stairs, landing harder than he would have liked and was forced to slam his hand up against the wall in front of him to stop his face from doing likewise. Sounds of someone struggling came from behind him and he turned to see the blonde female vampire who he believed was the sire for this little nest holding onto the young runaway.

"I'd ask you who you are, but I think I just don't give a damn." She said to him as she shook the trapped teenager into stillness with the grip on her hair and reached over to touch her face with her other hand.

Xander had the distinct impression that she was about to snap the girl's neck and his body reacted before his mind even catalogued the thought. With a snap of his wrist, he buried the last of his rough wooden needles into Sunday's moving hand. The vampire gave an aggravated scream and let the girl go. The teen backed away from the two of them and ran once more for the windows.

Sunday pulled the bit of wood out of her hand with a growl and dropped it to the floor. It landed with a little plinking sound and rolled away behind her. Without any warning, she leapt at him, surprising him enough that she managed to wrench the sword out of his hand as they grappled. He didn't move quite fast enough and took a glancing blow to the side of his head from the hilt of the sword when she'd reversed it and had jabbed it towards his nose.

He grabbed her hand, squeezing until she grunted and dropped the weapon.

Then she kicked him.

Yes, there.

He literally couldn't breath and a dhampir was human enough to need to. He ended up on his knees, his hands now covering the injured area, fighting for air and wanting to curl up in a ball until the pain either passed or he died. For a moment, he didn't care which.

Sunday smirked down at him, keeping her eyes on him as she bent down for the sword. Her hand closed on nothing and she frowned to see that it wasn't where it had landed. She looked up in time to see a very angry, very frightened young girl swinging a very sharp piece of metal at her.

Rose's aim wasn't great and she was really just lashing out without any plan, so she ended up digging the sword into the vampires shoulder rather than taking off her head. She backed away as Sunday shrieked.

"You bitch. I'm going to feed you this sword and drain you dry while you choke on it." She grabbed onto the hilt and started to pull it out. The sound of wood scraping over concrete stopped her and she snarled as she saw Xander pick up the discarded wooden needle from the floor. She wrenched the sword out of her shoulder and swung.

The kid's left hand came up sideways and caught the blade, with a sound strangely like teeth biting down on metal. At the same time, his right hand ran the wooden needle up under her rib cage and into her heart.

She looked at him, her expression annoyed. An expression that crumpled and fell apart as she dusted.

Xander pulled the sword the rest of the way out of her grip just as she did so. Giles wouldn't be very happy with the shape it was in now from being dropped, he would be less than thrilled if part of it got dusted because a vampire was holding it when they went poof.

He moved gingerly over to a wall and leaned up against it. The young woman, who still breathed, had a heartbeat and managed to avoid being dinner, stood uncertainly in front of him. She licked her lips nervously. "Should I be running now?"

He wheezed out a laugh. "No, but let's get out of here anyway." He walked slowly over to the stairs.

She looked from him, to the windows and back again.

"It's your choice," he said, noticing her indecision. "But if there's anything up there that you think you can use you're free to take it. I doubt anyone else will be using it."

She stood there a while longer after he went up, but in the end, she only went to the window to retrieve her duffle bag. Food, clothes and things she could sell for money won out over the dubious safety of leaving the house.

After all, just because the monsters in here were dead, didn't mean there weren't more monsters out there.

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Xander's balance was a little off from the hit to the head and when he got to the top of the stairs, his shoulder brushed against something that jingled. He was surprised to see a set of keys hanging off a hook underneath the kitchen light switch. He pulled them off to look at them.

Car keys?

He crossed the kitchen to the still open back door and looked out. He hadn't paid it much mind earlier, but the house did have a small garage, one big enough for one car and some gardening supplies.

He'd check it out, later. For now, he closed the door and went over to the kitchen sink, overjoyed to find that the water was also still on in the house.

He drank deep.

"Hey, give me some of that too, would you?"

Xander stuck his left hand under the tap and let it drink until it said enough.

He was just turning off the taps when the girl came up from the basement.

"Hey." He nodded at her.

"Uh, hi." She fidgeted slightly.

"Water?" Xander indicated the sink and then backed away, treating her more or less like a wild animal that had to be approached carefully.

"Yeah." She looked around for a moment, then went to the kitchen cabinets, pulling the one with the stake in it open. She pulled out a dusty glass and took it over to the sink. She stood at it half turned so she could keep an eye on him as she rinsed it out and then filled it. She turned all the way around to face him as she drank.

When she finished, she set the glass down on the counter next to the sink. "So, wanna tell me what just happened here tonight?"

Xander blew out a breath, this would be fun of the 'not' variety.

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Two days later saw her at the bus depot. Rose was better dressed than before, having used those days to go through the old frat house and pick out anything useful from the piles of junk the vampires had collected. There had even been some money in the mix, enough for a bus ticket out of here, though she still wasn't going home. The situation there was bad enough to make the vampires seem tolerable, so she was heading in the opposite direction. She'd told Xander that she had an aunt who lived in Vegas, who didn't get along with her father and would let her stay for a while. She wasn't sure he believed her, but he hadn't said anything to stop her from going.

Rose suspected she wouldn't stay in Vegas long, but she had to get out of Sunnydale. The place had her looking over her shoulders every ten minutes. Realistically, she understood that Vegas was just as likely to have vampires, but there was something about this town that made her feel just as trapped as she'd been back home. So Vegas was the better alternative, even if she would be spending all her evenings inside.

Xander came in from parking the car, dragging her luggage in with him. They'd checked out the garage on the house grounds and it did contain a car in semi-decent condition. Xander would have given it to her in a second, but she was only fifteen and as great as it would have been to have her own wheels she didn't know how to drive. One imagining of her fiery death on the highway was enough for her to turn it down. Xander was using it for now and had driven her from the frat house to the bus station. He wouldn't be able to use it for long, even though the car was actually registered and had insurance.

The problem was, it wasn't registered to him. Xander found the forms in the glove compartment and from the looks of the registration the car had originally belonged to the male vampire he'd killed the first night he'd patrolled the campus. The guy probably brought it with when he'd started school at UC Sunnydale and had moved it to the garage once he became a vampire.

Still, could use it until the registration ran out. It was easier than biking over to the university.

"Got your ticket?"

"Yep."

"Know where you're going once you get there?"

"It's just a cab ride to my aunt's place."

Xander looked at her a little wistfully. "Well, just in case staying with your aunt doesn't pan out, I thought you could use this." He handed her an envelope. She peered inside and then looked up at him, her eyes wide.

"How much is in there?" She asked, her voice a harsh whisper.

"A little over three thousand dollars. I took what I could reasonably hock without gathering too much heat and pawned the stuff here and in Ventura and Oxnard."

She looked at him confused.

"They're the closest cities north of Sunnydale that are bigger, so there's more places to sell things. Figured it would be safer to spread it around a bit." He didn't bother to mention he skipped Santa Barbara because his dad pawned stuff there when the local shops were pissed at him.

"Oh."

"If you can't stay with your aunt, then this should let you get a place for a few months. There's ID in there as well, so you can prove you're older."

"What?"

"Yeah." He looked uncomfortable. "They kept the IDs of everyone they…"

She looked at the envelope, slightly ill.

"I know, it's yucky, big time, but you might need to get a place to stay, so I picked out a couple of sets you could probably pass for and did an online search for them. If anyone knows they're dead, it hasn't hit the news or their credit card companies. I think they'll hold up through a check to rent an apartment. And if you can get someone to rent without anything more than a look at the ID, all the better."

"You know the aunt in Vegas is bullshit, don't you?"

He shrugged. "I suspected. You could stay here…"

"No! I can't. If I stay one more night in that house, I'll be more paranoid than… than somebody really paranoid. I can't stay there; I can't even stay in this town. As soon as the bus pulled in here I could tell it was a bad idea but I was out of money, so…"

"So you ended up almost eaten by vampires."

"Exactly." She looked at the envelope in her hands. "Half of this should be yours."

"Eh, I've got the car and besides, I still haven't finished going through the place, I'm covered." They both looked up as the boarding for her bus was called. "Listen, you take care of yourself, kay?

"I will."

"And write. I won't expect regular letters, but at least one to let me know when you find a place. An address you can send it to is in the envelope as well."

Rose blinked her eyes and cursed mentally. She would not cry.

Xander hugging her almost broke her right there.

She squeezed back and let go with a sniff. Then before she could change her mind, she grabbed her luggage and walked with it over to the bus driver, giving him her ticket before leaving her suitcases to be stored under the bus while she got a seat.

Twenty minutes later they pulled out of the station. When they passed the 'You are now leaving Sunnydale sign she didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but either way it felt as if some giant weight was lifting. Only leaving home had ever brought her more relief.

Only this time, surviving seemed little more possible, despite finding out the world wasn't anything like she thought it was.


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: Don't own. Usual disclaimers apply.

A Hunter's Tale or How Did We Get from Here to There

By Colleen

Chapter 9

_I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for those meddling kids and that stupid dog! ~Most any villain, Scooby Doo_

Sometimes Xander wished they could go out and get drunk. It might not be a very smart thing to do, but weeks like these seemed to call for it. Ghosts, guns, snakes, wasps and Buffy and Angel possessed by doomed lovers of the past. The only reason they survived the incident was because Angel was a vampire and being shot dead wasn't a permanent condition for him. Still, him bolting after they both came out of it didn't do much for Buffy's state of mind. Xander planned to go thump the vampire over the head later, but for now he passed Buffy another pint of ice cream and let her vent.

The next night Xander walked into Willie's place and narrowed his eyes at the morose idiot in black leather sitting at the bar, downing a shot. Xander walked the length of the room and slid onto an empty stool next to Angel. Willie's was only about medium busy and it looked like everyone had wisely decided to give the vampire his space.

Xander made a fist, raised it and brought it down on top of Angel's head.

"Ow, what?" The vampire with a soul turned bleary eyes on him as he rubbed his head. "What was that for?"

"For being a dick."

"Just… go away Xander."

Xander made an indescribable sound of annoyance. "Why do I even try? Look, I know being happy would be dangerous for you, but could you try for just depressed rather than out and out miserable?"

Xander firmly believed Angel would have hit him right then, but two... some things interrupted, sitting down on either side of them.

"Would you look at this, a human. " The one next to Xander said.

"And the vampire who hangs out with the Slayer." Said the one on the other side of Angel.

Xander glared at the one next to him, the temperature around him immediately dropping several degrees. Angel glowered at the demon beside him, the alcohol in his system evaporating in the face of possible danger.

Willie stood behind the bar, polishing cloth twisting in his hands. "There's a no fight rule in here guys. Take it outside if there's a problem."

"No problems." The one next to Xander, whom the teen had already christened with the nickname 'Dumb', said.

"Just a friendly chat." Said the one next to Angel, who was now to be known as 'Dumber'.

Dumb dropped an arm over Xander's shoulder, apparently immune to the mind numbing cold seeping from the young man. Dumber also wasn't paying attention, but Angel stiffened in alarm next to him and Willie stumbled back, quickly running out of space and hitting the bottles lining his side of the bar. The sound caught the attention of everyone else in the place.

"Willie." The bartender jumped. "Four blood shots, human." Dumb said, indicating the four of them.

Xander shrugged the arm off his shoulder. "Let's stop this right here."

Dumb smiled, "If you're going to come in here, then you'll damn well drink what we drink, even if I have to force it down your throat."

Xander knew he should take the higher road, just hurt the two idiots a little, and then walk away. He should not engage in total mayhem with them and anyone else stupid enough to join in. A glance at Angel showed the vampire struggling with the same dilemma, along with a very real need to beat the crap out of something.

"Ah, what the hell." Angel nodded in agreement and the two of them picked up the shots when they were place in front of them and tossed them back, much to Dumb and Dumber's surprise.

A surprise that quickly turned to pain and fear.

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Willie looked around his place of business and slumped in relief. The damage inside was limited. He'd been lucky. Very, very lucky. The fight, involving several of the less than bright members of his clientele had moved outside shortly after it started. Blasted earth might be a term that better fit what now existed outside his door, but most of that was the municipal works department's problem, not his.

Tossing a few broken bottles into a half full garbage can, he made a mental note to avoid serving the kid blood again. Until today he thought the Slayer's friends were human, aside from Angel of course, now… he had to wonder. If the kid was… whatever he was, then what the hell were the rest of them?

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Xander eyed the pool warily. He could do this. Something odd was going on with the swim team and they needed extra bodies to replace the ones eaten by some sort of sea creature. He used to be a decent swimmer. If he made the team, he could help Buffy keep an eye on the remaining members by being on the inside.

Tryouts were in a couple of hours. He was just here to warm up a bit and time himself.

"Kid, this is a bad idea. I'm sure you can track the team without getting wet. Besides, dhampirs and water don't mix."

"Hey, D could swim. I have lots of memories of him doing it."

"Do you also remember how much it took out of him and that physically he's a hell of a lot older than you and therefore more powerful?"

"It'll be fine."

His left hand just groaned.

Xander took his position and dove into the water. The initial dive took him about a third of the distance of the length of the pool before he floundered to the surface, his body already stiffening as it became heavier and slowed. His core temperature dropped several degrees despite the warmth of the indoor pool and he didn't move through the water so much as wallowed his way through it.

When he finally made it to the other side, he had to use the pool edge to pull himself over to the ladder. He didn't have the strength to get out the way he normally would. Once out, he collapsed at the side of the pool and stared up at the ceiling, breathing hard.

"I told you. It'll probably be another millennium or two before you can swim like you use to."

"La, la, la, not listening."

If Left Hand could have pounded his head against something, he would have. He understood the kid was keeping his sanity by pretending he wasn't damn near immortal, but one of these days he wouldn't be able to deny it any longer and the symbiote wasn't looking forward to the meltdown that would occur when it finally did get through to him.

In the end, Left Hand was right, he didn't have to get wet. Even without an inside man, they managed to find out the team members weren't being eaten by some kind of sea creatures; they were becoming the creatures. This led them to question one of the team members, vigorously. Willow, it turned out, was disturbingly good at interrogation. The swimmer caved in less than three minutes and fingered the coach. Buffy and Xander went to confront him and in true villain style, he explained everything before trying to kill them. It worked about as well as one would expect when a high school coach tries to take on the Slayer and a dhampir. They turned him over to the authorities, who looked a little too Men in Black for their tastes, but there wasn't much they could do about that. Those members of the team that hadn't changed got plasma treatments to clean out the 'drug' in their system and those already altered proved smart enough to get the hell out of Sunnydale, thereby avoiding the so called 'animal control agents'.

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Giles came into the library and put a jar with a small amount of dust on the table. He stared at it for a moment, and then went to get some of his more obscure texts out of the book cage.

"Well whatever it is, it can't be good."

The librarian looked up, surprised. "Jenny, how long have you been there?"

"Since just before you walked in." The computer teacher smiled at him. "I was going to ask you over to dinner tonight, but I get the feeling you're going to be busy with something else."

"Oh, well, actually, dinner would be nice." He smiled back at her. "As for this… I'm not sure what it is yet. The museum called me in to consult on a recent find. I was rather surprised. Charles, the contact I had there moved on to a museum somewhere in Texas. However, a college of mine at the Washington Institute recommended me when the Sunnydale museum called them for help."

"Does it have the potential to be something bad?"

Giles sighed. "In this town, what doesn't?'

"Okay, so dinner at my place and after, I'll help you research. And after research…" She smiled at him.

"Oh, my… well, yes."

The next morning Xander stopped by the library to make sure nothing evil popped up overnight and found Giles half-humming, half singing while shelving books.

As he stood there, Willow and Buffy quietly joined him. Both girls tilted their heads, watching the librarian with disturbed amusement.

"You got laid, didn't you?"

Giles froze and turned from his work to glare at the teenagers.

"Xander!" Both girls exclaimed and he held up his hands in protest.

"It wasn't me."

His left hand chuckled and they all turned their glares on it.

"Hey, I'm just stating the obvious here."

"Yes, well, perhaps you could still keep it to yourself." Giles said; looking very put out.

"Ooooh, touchy."

Xander turned his hand so he could see the little face in it. "You know, there are ways I can hurt you. Don't make me start mining D's memories for the best of them."

"Spoilsport."

Xander's left hand started to close.

"Okay, okay." Xander opened the hand again. "Sheesh!"

"Well, morning candour aside, why are you three… or rather four, here?"

They shrugged. "Just checking in." Buffy said. "See if anything dire is happening… other than prepping for finals."

"Ah, well. There is a strange artifact I'm investigating at the museum, but I haven't finished the translation on it and they don't even have the carbon dating back yet. Other than that, I don't know of any problems. I suspect finals are enough."

"You're not kidding." Buffy said glumly.

Instead of sleeping that afternoon, Xander went out to the old frat house after school. He parked his borrowed car in the garage, entering the house through the basement window. After some argument, Left Hand had talked him into cleaning the place out and keeping an eye on it so another nest didn't move in. As long as it was empty, the house could serve as a bolthole if things got sticky, either at a supernatural or family level.

To that end, he was spending a couple of hours a day after school going over everything and getting rid of what he wasn't going to keep. That included most of the ratty furniture, which he broke and stuffed into garbage bags. When he was done, he packed the day's debris into the car to drop it off at randomly chosen campus dumpsters.

So far, he'd cleaned out the living room to the bare walls, but it was still going to be a long time before he finished the main floor.

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Kendra got off the plane in Sunnydale, heading into the small airport to collect her luggage. She'd already dealt with customs when she changed planes in LA and discovered that the ID her Watcher gave her included diplomatic immunity through the British Embassy, so even with a sword in her luggage it hadn't taken long.

This was the second time she'd flown with an actual ticket and she liked it. Her Watcher still believed travelling incognito should be accomplished by stowing away and avoiding the use of passports and such, but she noticed that travelling like everyone else made her anonymous compared to her previous methods. Normal air travel meant she didn't alarm airport security when she knocked out the ground crew as she left her hiding place.

Leaving the airport, she could feel the Hellmouth like an itch against her skin. It was enough to make her take the long way to Buffy's home so she could work in a patrol along the way. When she came across Buffy she couldn't resist shadowing the other Slayer, at least until her sister slayer had enough of pretending there wasn't someone following her and confronted Kendra.

"Let me guess," Buffy said. "Your Watcher told you that you that there is a dark power rising in Sunnydale."

Kendra nodded. "A very dark power."

"I don't suppose you know what that power is supposed to be?"

Kendra nodded and smiled.

After a call to Giles, the other slayer spent what was left of the night at Buffy's, going with her to the school library the next morning to meet up with Giles and Willow. The Watcher was in his office on the phone to the museum a few minutes after her full report.

Kendra noticed Buffy and Willow tension levels jumped when the librarian went to his office, but she wasn't sure why. Surely her Watcher saying something as innocent as "Oh, dear" couldn't be what set them off.

Power.

Kendra stiffened and looked at the two girls who were starting to relax. Maybe their tension was because they'd felt it first, but knew what it was? It did seem familiar…

Then Xander walked into the library.

"Oh gods." That's why the power was familiar, because it was him. Only it was stronger than before.

He was stronger than before.

"Kendra?" Buffy looked at the other Slayer concerned.

Kendra swallowed thickly. She could do this. The other two obviously had no problem with the boy's power levels, so she would deal and not come off like a stuttering ninny.

She looked directly at him… and blushed. He had gotten even better looking since the last time she'd been here.

Suddenly her shoes were of great interest.

"Hey, two Slayers." Xander said, starting out peppy. Then his face fell. "That's probably not a good thing."

"No, I doubt it is." Giles said, returning from his office. "The artifact in question is still at the museum.

"Artifact?" Xander asked.

"The tomb of Acathla."

"Yeah, that doesn't sound good."

Willow came around the desk with an open book in her hands. "He will suck the world into hell?"

"Really not good."

Giles threw Xander a look, but addressed his answer to Willow. "Essentially, yes. Acathla was a demon that came forth to swallow the world. "Giles took the book from her and started to read from it. "He was killed by a virtuous knight, who pierced the demon's heart before he could draw a breath to perform the act. Acathla turned to stone, as demons sometimes do, and was buried where neither man nor demon would want to look."

Buffy asked the question. "So where did they find him?"

"Just outside of Sunnydale. They were digging foundations for low-rent housing."

Xander shook his head. "Typical. It makes you wonder what else might be buried around this town that's just waiting to bite us in the ass."

"Indeed."

Kendra took one more glance at Xander, and then decided to do her best to ignore him and get on with things. "My Watcher sent this along." She opened the bag she had with her and pulled out a sword. "Blessed by the knight who first slew the demon. If something should happen, this might stop it."

"May I." Giles asked and Kendra handed the sword to him. "Thank you." He looked the blade over. "Well, let's hope that something doesn't happen."

"Shiny."

Giles rolled his eyes and handed the weapon over to Xander, He worked a couple of moves with it. "Very nice. Beats anything you've got at the moment G-man."

"Yes… By the way, I've been meaning to ask you if you know how one of the swords ended up somewhat battered. It looks rather like someone dropped it onto concrete."

Xander handed the sword back. "You don't say?" He replied, none too innocently.

"Hmm."

xxxxxxxx

Doug Perren came out of his office at the Sunnydale Museum of Natural History, stopping abruptly as he noticed a man standing in front of the museums newest acquisition. A glance at his watch confirmed he hadn't lost more time than he'd thought.

"Excuse me sir, but I'm afraid the museum is currently closed."

"Well, I hope not to me." The man turned, smiling and Doug felt a jerk of recollection as he remembered him from a couple of museum functions he'd attended since taking over the post.

"Mayor Wilkins, what brings you out here?" He held out his hand and the Mayor clasped it in a handshake. The curator noticed the last two times they'd met that Wilkins had an exceptional handshake. It was as if he'd done it over and over for a very long time, even for a politician.

Handshake finished, the Mayor turned to look at the obelisk. "Actually, this is what brought me out here. After reading the article in the paper, I just had to see it. Sadly, with my duties, I wouldn't be able to make it here any other time."

"Ah, of course. Well, it's quite a find. We don't know all that much about it yet. I'm expecting the carbon dating back today and a local expert is doing a translation of the outer casing."

"Outer casing?" The Mayor asked it as a question, but he didn't seem all that surprised by the idea that there was something inside the stone pillar.

"Yes, there's something inside, we think. The expert wanted the chance to translate the symbols on it and maybe figure out what's in there before we open it. He said he didn't care much for being surprised."

"Smart man. Who is he, by the way?"

"Rupert Giles. The Washington Institute recommended him."

"Really? That might work out best of all."

"Excuse me?"

The Mayor shook his head and smiled a perfect politician's grin. "Nothing. Well, thanks for your time."

"Anytime Mayor, anytime."

Deputy Mayor Allan Finch was waiting nervously when Mayor Robert Wilkins returned to City Hall. Wilkins opened the door to his office and headed over to a cabinet. Allen came in after him, wincing slightly when the Mayor opened the cabinet. The shelves inside were filled with a variety of disturbing items. Shrunken heads, severed hands, foetuses in jars… all of it distasteful. Wilkins barely glanced at them, reaching in to pull out a package of moist towelettes. Taking one, he used it to clean his hands.

"Yes Allen?"

"I have a retrieval team standing by sir."

"That's what I've always liked about you," Wilkins folded the towelette and dropped it into a nearby garbage container. "Your efficiency." He went around and sat down at his desk. "We'll be holding off on that for now though."

"Sir." Finch's nervousness jumped several notches. "Is that wise, that thing could…"

"Yes, it could, but apparently the Slayer, or at least her Watcher, has become involved. So for now, I'll let them deal with it. Keep someone on hand though, in case things go pear shaped."

"Of course. Allen left the office, already rearranging where to put people in his mind.

The mayor watched him go and shook his head. "That lad really needs to work on being more chipper." With a happy attitude, he slid a waiting pile of paperwork over so it was perfectly square in front of him and started in on it.

xxxxxxxx

Since they wouldn't be able to drag Acathla off in Giles' car, Xander rented a moving truck with safety restraints that would be big enough to hold it and several people. To muddy the trail in case the police thought to track truck rentals, Xander used one of the IDs from the frat house. It was becoming more and more disturbing just how useful a dead person's ID could be. Of course, he couldn't quite shake the ick factor, but sometimes he was all about necessity, so he buried the feeling and did what he had to.

He didn't bother to tell anyone about the identity switch; they didn't need to share in the ick. However, it was mostly because he hadn't told them about the frat house and didn't plan to unless everything in their lives hit the fan and they needed a place to hide.

Who knows, it might be soon.

That night, a paneled moving truck parked at the loading docks behind the museum. Eight people got out. Six of them waited by the large rising door, while two of them went over to the regular door and opened it with a double push of Slayer strength. They entered and waved the rest of the group in.

Oz was the one who said it, although Xander had to admit he'd had this thought before. "Doesn't anyone ever find it odd that so many important places in Sunnydale don't have alarm systems?"

Buffy shrugged. "I've always been glad for it. Having the police come in every time we chased something through… yeah, okay, it is weird."

"We have an alarm system on our house. So do most of the people my parents know." Cordelia thought about what she said for a moment. "Of course, that's just to stop burglars. You don't actually need them to stop vampires. All you have to do is not invite them in."

"But in a public place…" Willow said. "The vampires can come in anytime they like."

"In my opinion, someone in this town is stacking the deck in the monsters' favour."

Kendra frowned and looked over the people in the group. That hadn't sounded like anyone here.

"I believe it's the only thing that could explain Principal Snyder holding a position that allows him to deal with people, much less children." Everyone looked at Giles in shock, who gave them a wry smile. "The tomb should be over this way. Buffy, Kendra, perhaps you could go check for guards. They probably have that much security."

"On it."

Xander noticed Angel twitch beside him as they stared up at the obelisk. "You okay?"

"Do you hear that?"

Xander listened to the museum. He could hear everyone close by and just barely make out the sounds of Buffy and Kendra returning from their reconnoitre of the area. Further back, in a distant room, he thought he could hear someone… snoring? But that was all.

Angel walked forward and put his hand on the artifact, causing Xander to start slightly. He reached over, pulling the vampire back. "What is it?"

"I can hear it… whispering."

"Oh, not good."

"What's not good?" Buffy asked as the two of them returned.

"It's talking to him."

"Giles!" Buffy turned to the Watcher for help, to find him touching the surface of the obelisk, surprise on his face.

Willow and Oz, who were closest to the Watcher grabbed him by his coat and pulled him back.

"You know, I was going to suggest we open this," Xander said, keeping a wary eye on the stone column. "And take Acathla out of it, leaving the museum with the tomb they wouldn't know was empty for a few days. But I don't want to take that thing out of there now."

"Agreed." Giles said, appearing to have shaken off whatever had affected him.

"Good, I'll get the forklift." Xander paused. "Oh, were there any guards?"

"Just one and he's asleep in the break room."

Ah, the snoring. Xander grimaced. The forklift would be noisy.

Buffy seemed to realize that too. "I think between the three of us," she said, indicating herself, Kendra and Xander. "We could get this thing in the truck."

It took them longer than a forklift would have, long enough in fact that all of them started to hear the whispers, although none of them said anything about it. Twenty minutes after they started, they had the tomb in the truck and were driving away with it.

xxxxxxxx

"This is the problem with all of our plans. After we get the thing we don't know what to do with it." Cordelia said. Her arms were crossed and she tapped one foot as she watched everyone who had super strength, including Angel, wrestle the obelisk into an old abandoned mansion on the outskirts of town.

"I was going to stay here with this thing, but I don't think I should be alone with it." The vampire backed away from the tomb, his eyes wary.

"Yes." Giles had to agree with Angel, the thing was…off putting. The quicker they got rid of it, the better. "Xander, you're sure you can rent us that larger boat?"

"Already done. I couldn't get it until the day after tomorrow though." He glanced at his watch. "Make that tomorrow."

"I'll stay with Angel. I don't have to be anywhere other than here." Kendra said. "Although, I could use some supplies. Food, that sort of thing."

"I'm well known for my absences. I'll drop everyone off, pick up some supplies and come back." Oz said quietly. They'd left Giles' car and Oz' van at the mansion so they would have a ride. The moving truck they parked in the back, to be used later to convey the tomb down to the boat. They had briefly considered leaving the column in the truck, but the thought of someone managing to drive off with it left them all uncomfortable.

"I'll come by after school." Buffy said. "And mom already knows I won't be home tonight.

"I'll come too." Willow added.

"Me three." Was Xander's contribution.

"Ms. Calendar and I will be doing some research. We'll be by closer to dinner time, with more food and to discuss the plan for tomorrow."

Kendra and Angel were not comfortable in each other's company. Buffy and him aside, Slayers and vampires did not mix well. And of course, the last time they'd met she had trapped him and left him where the sun would eventually fry him. So they took turns standing guard and patrolling the area to keep out of each other's way.

They were both grateful when Oz showed up with groceries and other niceties, like toilet paper. And not just for the supplies. He wasn't much of a talker, but he was at least a buffer to place between them. Even if he did end up spending a lot of the time meditating. Kendra didn't think anything of it, but it was something of a surprise to Angel, given how laid back the teen already was.

xxxxxxxx

A man, who appeared to be the result of taking every movie gangster snitch in the history of filmdom and running them through a blender before pouring the end product into a dirty martini glass, walked up a lonely street near the edge of Sunnydale.

"Things don't feel right, Angel's supposed to be evil, go to the Hellmouth and check on it." Whistler stopped and looked up at the sky. "Only no one told me he was going to end up evil, in fact I thought he was supposed to STOP IT!" Grumbling, the 'man' kicked a small rock down the sidewalk and continued walking. "Ought to know, I recruited him for that side myself. Powers that be, never tell you anything."

He turned up the driveway to a deserted mansion and walked up to the door. He stared at it for a moment and sighed. "Guess I should knock…ah."

Flailing his arms as his world went upside down; he still managed to catch his hat before it fell off. Twisting his head to an uncomfortable angle, he saw a beautiful, dark young woman who was somehow holding him up by one leg with only one arm.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Now, who might you be?"

xxxxxxxx

"Whistler." Angel said, standing by the room's fireplace. "Long time no see."

The balance demon picked himself up off the floor where the woman, or rather Slayer, had dropped him and straightened his clothing while he considered the situation. He had been hearing plans for a Slayer to go evil. Guess it had happened.

"Angel, it's good to see you… or is it Angelus now?"

The vampire glared at him, but Whistler ignored him, looking around the room. "Love the decorating." He said, indicating the obelisk. His glance brought him to Oz, who was sitting on the floor, meditating. "And it's nice to see you're sharing the place with friends. Er, assuming he isn't lunch."

Oz opened his eyes. They were the yellow of a harvest moon and the pupils shrank quickly to tiny black dots when exposed to light. Whistler straightened a little. "Ah, not lunch, although I might be."

Oz closed his eyes, took a deep cleansing breath, let it out slowly and when he opened them they had returned to their normal colour. "You know this guy?" He asked, addressing Angel.

"Yeah, he's a balance demon. Recruited me a couple of years ago to fight on the side of right."

"Ah, so why is he here now?"

"Good question." Angel looked at Whistler, waiting for an answer.

"So, the balance is off and you've been sent here to fix it." Oz said, simplifying Whistler's obscure and cryptic explanation a few minutes later.

"Damn, you're good kid."

Kendra looked as if she wanted to turn him upside down again and shake him, just on general principles. "So, what is it you are supposed to do?"

Whistler pulled out a notebook and flipped through it. "Lets see. Angel should be evil. Seems to have happened before I got here. He should have the Tomb of Acathla." He looked at the obelisk. "Ditto." He looked at the next item in his notes a second look, before giving them an insincere smile and closing the book. "And some things are just too boring to go into now."

"Why don't you tell us about it anyway?"

Whistler blinked as he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and wave for attention. He turned to see a young man he didn't recognize sandwiched between the blonde Slayer and the computer hacker, Willow. The youth was fit, tall, had brown velvety hair that was long enough to just start to brush at his shoulders and a face that near called out to be sculpted. But it was the aura that seeped off the kid that was the true attention getter. Ghastly was what came to mind as it swept over him and he saw that Angel and his companions weren't immune to it either.

"And who might you be?"

Xander looked at him and smiled. "New player."

Xander knew balance didn't mean things were going to come down on your side. In fact, balance usually meant it wouldn't come down on any side. And if it had to screw you over to keep it that way, it would.

Xander winced. He may have just hurt himself with that line of logic.

Whistler's notebook turned out to be useless to them. It was written in a language that even D hadn't known. Happily, the balance demon was just as susceptible to Left Hand's influence as any mortal, although probably only because Xander fed the carbuncle a four element dinner before heading over. Added to the power stored from eating the Judge's hand it was just enough to do the job.

Whoever this guy was, he was a lot stronger than he appeared to be.

Kendra was now in on his secret, but she barely even blinked at Left Hand's existence. It was as if she knew something had to be up with him.

After they'd wrung what he knew out of Whistler, there were only three reasons why no one moved to kill the demon. The first was that when he recruited Angel, he believed the vampire was getting a chance to change and do some good. The second, because at the time he had no knowledge of how the soul curse worked. And the third, he had thought Angel was destined to protect the world from Acathla. The new plan, where Angel opens a rift to Hell, just so he could be killed and sucked up into the abyss to close it again, made little sense to him.

The one reason to kill him; was because even though he thought it was stupid, he fully intended to follow his orders and see that it happened.

Whistler held his aching head and looked at the kid responsible. "Who the hell are you?"

The kid sighed. "Figures I'm not enough of a player to show up on your radar."

Self-confidence issues. That might be something to use.

"Xander Harris." The boy said, introducing himself.

Whistler felt his eyes cross. That didn't make sense. He's read the notes on this kid. Goofy, hormonal, stalwart and true, in his own way. He had an interesting balance to him, but he was a side player.

And this man wasn't.

"So, what do we do with him?" Buffy asked. Whistler noticed that sometime during him spilling his guts, the blonde Slayer ended up in the shelter of Angel's arms. Now that was something he hadn't considered. Just because Angel was evil again, didn't mean the Slayer would choose to oppose him. If she loved him that much and if he hadn't been stupid enough to show his true colours first thing, then he might have brought her around to his way of thinking, at least partially.

"It's not going to end well you know. Slayers who go rogue don't last long."

Now everyone was looking at him confused.

He turned back to Xander when he heard a rough chuckle. One that made his head ache even more than it already was.

"He thinks Angel's evil and everyone has followed suit. You haven't been keeping track of what goes on here very well."

The voice was coming from the kid, but his lips weren't moving. There was something about that, something he was sure he should remember from just a few minutes ago, but the memory squirmed out of his grasp, mocked him and then ran off giggling.

He answered the kid's question. In fact, he felt compelled to. "The Hellmouth messes with probability. Instead of a dozen or so possible futures to look through there are thousands. When you try to figure out what's going to happen here you end up working with the futures that are the most probable. If you tried to work with all of them you'd go mad."

"Huh, so basically you're just pulling stuff out of your ass."

"Where the hell is that voice coming from?"

Everyone looked at him a little surprised, even the kid. It was as if they thought he really ought to know already.

The voice chuckled again. "Somebody's cranky. Look's like its nap time."

The kid, Xander, shook his head at the voice and walked over to Whistler, placing his hand on the balance demon's shoulder.

"What are you do…zzzzz."

"So, what do we do with him now?"

Xander personally liked Willow's suggestion that they strip the demon down to his skivvies, pin a tail on him, paint him blue and pose him outside the Sunnydale comic book shop with a sign advertising the latest issue of the X-men.

Sadly, no one other than Willow shared his enthusiasm.

In the end, they went with the simplest solution. A tried and true classic. Left Hand put extra whammy into the sleep charm, enough to keep high level noble from D's reality asleep for a week. Then they spritzed the balance demon down with tequila, stole his pants and dropped him off on the steps of the Sunnydale Police Department.

It took the Sunnydale PD all of five minutes to find him and drop him into a cell. With him asleep and locked up he was out of the way and probably safe.

He didn't wake up for two days.

xxxxxxxx

Whistler blinked and looked up at the ceiling of the cell he was in for a little over a minute before groaning and forcing himself into a sitting position.

"Well golly. It looks like someone had a little too much fun."

The balance demon felt his breath freeze in his lungs as he took in the genially smiling man standing outside his cell. He pulled air in raggedly and as soon as he had enough, he addressed said man.

"Mayor Wilkins." He didn't really know what to say after that. If there was anyone in Sunnydale that gave him the heebie jeebies, it was this guy.

Case in point, the mayor replied to his acknowledgement by saying Whistler's name back, only it wasn't the one he was using now, rather it was his original name. And the creepiness of him knowing his name aside, he didn't think human vocal cords could actually produce those sounds.

"You know, I've been working very hard the last century to make Sunnydale into what it is. And to that end I don't much care for it when servants of the Powers That Be stick their noses into things that are none of their business."

"Hey, Angel's my business, so is the Slayer. And I was just checking up on them… I don't suppose you know if they went and tried to end the world lately? I mean, what with Angel going evil and all."

Wilkins frowned at him, then shook his head and pulled out a file folder he'd held tucked under his arm. "According to the people I had keeping an eye on the situation over the last two days." He nodded at Whistler's shock look. "Yep, that's how long you've been out of it. Anyway, Angel is not currently evil, although he has ended all romantic ties with the Slayer and sunk deeper than usual into depression. The Slayer herself is so depressed that her mother is sending her to visit her father in LA for a change of scenery, just as soon as school is out for the summer. Acathla and his tomb were encased in layers of resin, fibreglass cloth and steel plating. The plating was covered with writing that appears to have been copied out of the most boring medical text on the face of the earth and describes in uncomfortable detail the symptoms of several unpleasant diseases. It was also decorated with pictures of a purple dinosaur whose name I won't mention, before having preservative spell placed on it. After that a final unknown spell was cast on it that rendered the tomb invisible."

"We believe it was taken by truck to a boat and transported out into the ocean, before being further weighted down and sunk. Since I'd rather no one recovered that particular problem, I've had my people's memories of the last two days erased."

Whistler thought about it. Angel was going through hell, Acathla was out of commission and the Slayer was devastated and would shortly be in LA. It was close enough to how everything was supposed to end up that the PTBs might leave it alone. Now the question was; would he be able to get out of here to tell them about it?

Apparently, the mayor read his mind. "I want you out of my town as quickly as possible, so you'll be released on your on recognisance… Just as soon as they find you some pants.

Whistler looked down at himself. He'd thought it had been a little drafty in here, even for a jail cell.

xxxxxxxx

Xander and Willow hugged Buffy goodbye, waving as she and her mother drove off towards LA. Once they were out of sight, Xander draped an arm over his best friend's shoulders and they started walking towards her place.

"So, summer's here. You planning to hit the beach and see if you can get Oz to become even more speechless than usual by parading around in an itsy bitsy teeny weenie yellow polka dot bikini?"

Willow swatted him."

"Ow."

"No." She said, and then waffled. "Well, maybe the beach… but no bikini. Actually, I'm going to be pretty busy. Ms. Calendar's been showing me some spells. She thinks I've got the potential to be a witch."

"Whoa."

"Yeah. Anyway, she's shown me about all she can, so she talked to Giles and he introduced me to a coven in England. They're the ones that took a piece of the Judge for us. I've been talking to them online. I think I'll be working on that a lot this summer."

"Cool."

Willow hesitated a moment. "Oz told me about the instruction manual, for the werewolf thing. Thank you."

Xander shrugged. "I wasn't sure it would work. It still hasn't completely, but I think eventually we won't have to lock him up and keep him company on the nights of a full moon. And if he ever needs to, he should be able to change without the full moon."

"Yeah, he thinks he's pretty close to being able to do that."

"And again, cool."

"So, what are you doing this summer, besides the beach?"

Xander grimaced. "Probably won't do much beach. Me and water is embarrassing and me and sun tanning, not of the good. Although burying me in the sand actually could be."

Heat syndrome, Sun syndrome, whatever you wanted to call it, eventually it would get him. He'd have to see if sand would work as well as straight earth. "Training."

"What?"

Xander shrugged. "I really need to make some of the stuff I have in my head fit my body better. So, training."

"We'll be doing some patrolling too, it'll help him with the training." Left Hand added.

Willow aimed an absent-minded smile at Xander's left hand. Echoing Xander's earlier move she draped an arm around her friend's waist as they walked.

"It's going to be an interesting summer, isn't it?"

Xander smiled. "It is."


End file.
